Posts - Americans

Survey Finds Over One Quarter Of Brazil’s Congress Is Corrupt

Entertainment News

A new survey of Brazil’s current congressional members has found that over a quarter of its members are either guilty of, or being investigated for, criminal activity. Those numbers will likely rise for the new congress considering that an investigation of the previous legislature by the group Congress in Focus found that about half of its members were accused of criminality. The new survey comes as the congress considers whether to proceed with impeachment hearings for the nation’s current president, Dilma Rousseff, who faces accusations of accepting illegal campaign funding from Brazilian oil firm Petrobras.

Those in the congress that are under investigation would not be barred from taking part in any impeachment proceedings for Rousseff. That includes the presidents of both the senate and lower house of congress, who have also been accused of involvement in the Petrobras scandal, among other charges. If Rousseff is ousted following an impeachment, Eduardo Cunha, president of the lower house of congress, and accused of accepting $5 million for assisting contractors who sought Petrobras contracts, would take her place.

Petrobras is a state-backed firm that has been charged with money laundering and organized crime, behavior which is said to have occurred during Rousseff’s tenure as head of the company’s board of directors. The company has also been accused of paying politicians for contracts, in amounts totaling up to $1.6 billion.

Illustrating their overall complacency towards corruption, the Brazilian senate ruled that despite the illegal activities that took place during Rousseff’s tenure at Petrobras, there is no evidence that she benefited personally. That is, of course, if you don’t count the funds that went to her 2010 and 2014 presidential campaigns.

The revolving door between industry and politics is just as prevalent in the U.S. as in Brazil, and citizens in both countries take a dim view of their leaders on the issue. Polling in Brazil last year showed that only 14% of respondents approved of the job its congress was doing, the same percentage as in the U.S. from an August 2015 survey.

Uber And Didi Kuaidi Are Now Locked In An Epic Battle For Control Of China’s Ride Sharing Market

Finance

Chinese Uber copycat Didi Kuaidi is approaching the $3 billion mark in its fundraising efforts, while Uber’s Chinese ride hailing service has now raised $1.2 billion, according to expert investor and two people who have inside knowledge of the companies.

Both companies are being described as the world’s most valuable startups.

The experts say the cash that Didi Kuaidi and Uber China have managed to pull in shows that investors are not put off by the two companies recent heavy spending on subsidizing fares and marketing as they have calculated China will become the world’s biggest internet-linked transport market.

Experts say the ratio of car ownership to population was also an attractive lure for car sharing services, as was the traffic congestion in major cities, which many commuters did not want to navigate themselves.

A Didi Kuaidi spokesman said the company, which currently can claim to having the lion’s share of car-hailing apps in China, had raised $2 billion in July with that amount expected to be significantly higher now due to “tremendous interest ” from investors globally.

The spokesman declined to give an exact amount on what had been raised, but a company insider told reporters the figure was close to $3 billion.The company has been valued at $16.5 billion.

Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief executive officer, said Uber China has so far received$1.2 billion in its ongoing fundraising, including an investment from Chinese internet giant Baidu Inc. Kalanick is speaking in Beijing today at the annual general meeting and conference of Baidu, which is ironically also a Didi Kuaidi investor.

Didi Kuaidi’s other major investors include Baidu’s main rivals Tencent and Alibaba Group, Hillhouse Capital, Capital International Private Equity Fund, Coatue Management, China Investment Corp, Ping An Insurance Group, and Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings.

Chinese Search Giant Baidu Launches Personal Digital Assistant To Take On Apple, Google And Microsoft

Finance

Baidu, China’s largest search engine, announced to the world that it has launched a new digital assistant similar to that of Google Now and Apple’s Siri. The digital assistant, called Duer, utilizes artificial intelligence to process voice requests to recommend and connect users with services such as restaurant reservations, buying movie tickets and booking flights.

As Chinese users rely more and more on their mobile phones to make online purchases, particularly for food deliveries and reservations, Internet giants are all competing for ways to capitalize on this opportunity. Baidu’s Duer was created to do just that.

Baidu chairman and founder Robin Li Yanhong stated that, “In the past, only the privileged few – those in very senior positions in companies or other organizations – had personal assistants. With Duer, every ordinary person can now have a powerful personal assistant who can provide valuable life services – for free.”

Duer will soon expand to include housekeeping, beauty, ride-hailing, education, travel and healthcare services.

Similar to the “Hello Siri” command on iPhones, the Duer app can be activated by saying “Hello Duer” into a user’s mobile phone.

Li Yanhong touts that the Duer program considers location and relevant sales and promotions when calculating search requests such as “What are some good Hunanese eateries nearby me?” The program also adds tags to provide users with more specific information such as weather a hotel is non-smoking.

The program will also direct users to merchants that already use Baidu’s platforms. Specifically, Duer will direct users to merchants who support Baidu. The process, however, is transparent as opposed to the claims currently lodged against Google regarding its “rigging” of search results based on the amount of money sponsors pay to Google.

Google’s digital assistant, Google Plus, is currently the most popular on the worldwide market. It has more than 1 billion active users across the globe, however it does not function correctly in mainland China. Google services are currently blocked in that region.

Other rivals besides Google Plus and Siri include Facebook’s M and Microsoft’s Cortana.

Creepy Scottish Police Tactic Sees Club-Goers Randomly Swabbed For Traces Of Drugs

Entertainment News

Police in Aberdeen, Scotland, have given the world a taste of a grim and highly invasive future after implementing a new drug control policy on club-going youth. Police in the city randomly swabbed the hands of club-goers for traces of illegal substances over the weekend, with those who failed to pass subject to search and potential arrest.

The new policy comes despite a backlash in recent years against the heavy-handed practices involving citizen searches.

Prior to the new swab policy, Scottish police had come under heavy criticism for their stop-and-search practices, which were being implemented without statutory authority and even saw children under 12 being subject to search. A review of the stop and search policy has resulted in codification of the practice, specifying conditions under which a search can be conducted.

Justice Secretary Michael Matheson said that police would not be allowed to do stop-and-search unless they had “reasonable grounds” to believe a crime was being committed. The wording parallels that of New York City’s stop-and-frisk policy, which is based on the standard of “reasonable suspicion.” This standard requires less justification than that of probable cause.

In order to conduct the swab surveys, swabs are placed in a sniffer device which is able to detect if a person has handled drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy, and heroin. Any individuals refusing the test were to be denied entrance to the establishment being monitored.

Even those who support anti-drug policy criticize the move, stating that innocent club-goers would likely wish to avoid any businesses with sniffer dogs and CCTV vans parked out front, as potential trouble spots.

Police point to Aberdeen’s achievement of Purple Flag status in 2013 as being a result of stop-and-swab. The award is issued for cities that have achieved excellence in night-life safety.

Scottish Liberal Democrat Willie Rennie spoke out against the stop-and-swab tactic, “Carrying out such tests without suspicion of a crime is a heavy handed and indiscriminate tactic by the police. It’s why we stood firmly against industrial scale stop-and-search. Police Scotland need to review this tactic and explain how this helps address drug-taking.”

Chinese Foreign Currency Reserves Drop To Lowest Point On Record As Economy Weakens

Entertainment News

Chinese foreign exchange reserves recorded their biggest fall in August, a reflection of increased intervention by Beijing to stabilize the country’s economy following months of stock market volatility that has led to a rebasing of the yuan.

China’s foreign currency reserves, the largest in the world, dropped by $93.9 billion in August to $3.557 trillion as per reports from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). The drop reported on Monday led many analysts to wonder how far interventions by China’s government to stem market decline would go in the wake of increased currency outflows and rising U.S. interest rates.

According to Zhou Hao, an economist at Commerzbank, Singapore, “Frequent intervention will burn foreign reserves rapidly and tighten the onshore market liquidity.” The offshore yuan weakened considerably in contrast to the onshore yuan, indicating that investors thought the onshore currency was being kept too high.

The dropping in foreign reserve exchange rates follows the Aug. 11 rebasing of the yuan, or renminbi, by two per cent. The devaluation was seen by analysts as a prediction to worse economic times going forward for the country. The first sign of that came with the plummeting foreign reserves.

Determined to show a stable economy despite internal downward pressure, Chinese policy makers have resorted to pumping currency into the economy through increased spending and easing up on purchases of falling stocks. The PBOC Governor Zhou Kiaochuan said over the weekend that the Chinese markets had corrected their swing and that regulators would increase market reforms to tone down the economic crisis.

The news did little to prop up China’s markets. The CSI300 Index representing the largest companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets dropped 3.4 per cent while the Shanghai index was down 2.5 per cent on Monday.

Earlier, both the Shanghai and Shenzhen indexes had planned to implement a “circuit breaker” allowing them to suspend trading once the country’s indices moved steeply either way. Beijing has not confirmed it would adopt the proposals.

The proposals have come under sharp criticism from analysts. Liu Ligang, China economist at ANZ said, “What’s the point? It merely delays the pace of the market fall.”

Multiple economic blows have meant that the world’s second largest economy may be in for a prolonged downward trend. Monetary, macro prudential and fiscal policies by the market regulators may not be effective in the near future and investors are bracing themselves for the worst.

Apple’s Protection Of User Privacy Is Leaving Them Behind In Big Data Apps

Finance

Apple is struggling to lure the brightest and the most smart phone tech savvy people to work for them causing the company to lag behind other phone producers in creating innovative smartphone services. Experts say ironically it’s the company’s self imposed end-user privacy policies that are to blame.

The experts say that based on what they hear from industry insiders and high tech recruitment consultants. Apple at present does not have the pull to attract the very small number of data scientists in the marketplace to not only leverage and develop cloud-based services but also think ahead to what smartphone users may want.

They say Apple’s difficulty in matching companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon for the best data science and analytical minds, falls at the door of the company’s desire to protect its users privacy. They cite as an example Apple’s policies on data retention gathered by its Siri ‘personal assistant’ product being six months, compared to the only 15 minutes for information kept from user’s use of Apple Maps.

The experts say if all apple’s devices had the short information retention time of its Apple Maps and those of rival Microsoft’s Cortana virtual assistant, and the Google Now service provided by Google it would help attract “data-hungry analysts and scientists, that thrive on ready and almost immediate access to data.

Although Apple was not currently able to compete in the employment stakes for the most smartphone tech savvy potential employees, Oren Etzioni, CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and a professor and the University of Washington, thinks this will only be a short lived obstacle for the company.

“In the past, Apple has not been at the vanguard of machine learning and cutting edge artificial intelligence work, but that is rapidly changing. They are after the best and the brightest, just like everybody else.”

Apple Eyes Using Hydrogen Fuel Cells To Power Smartphones For Weeks

Finance

Recharging your MacBook or iPhone may soon take mere seconds if a new fuel cell patent by Apple sees implementation. The new patent describes a liquid or compressed hydrogen fuel system that would allow quick recharging of devices by merely replacing an empty cartridge with a filled one.

British firm Intelligent Energy had previously announced a prototype iPhone 6 using their design that incorporates a hydrogen-powered fuel cell, which was capable of powering the device for one week. The prototype was created without alteration to the phone’s form or function, but vents were added to the case’s rear in order to allow water vapor to escape, a byproduct of hydrogen fuel cells. Whether or not water vapor would have any adverse effect on the device’s performance was not specified.

The technology could use a variety of vehicles for hydrogen, from lithium hydride to sodium borohydride, which could be combined with water or used in their pure forms. A device with this function could potentially run for weeks, given sufficient fuel. There may also be no need for a battery at all, which could be replaced with a capacitor that would supply power during the switching of fuel cartridges.

The mere mention of a new patent acquisition by a technology giant such as Apple does not necessarily mean big changes are coming to device design, however. These patents are also a strategy of maintaining competitive advantage by using the technology in house, or preventing competitors from doing the same. The company has filed numerous patents concerning fuel cell technology in recent years.

The patent announcement does come following recent news from Tsinghua University of Beijing and MIT, where researchers have discovered a method to quadruple the life cycle of current batteries using a new anode design. This discovery will definitely see implementation, because it does not change the fundamental interface between a device and its battery.

China Refuses To Quash Speculation It Just Secretly Met With North Korea

Entertainment News

China’s Foreign Ministry has refused to confirm or deny if talks took place between Chinese President Xi Jinping and senior officials from North Korea over the weekend.

Secretary of the North Korea’s Workers Party Central Committee Choe Ryong Hae, who is very close to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, was in Beijing last week attending China’s annual military parade and celebrations to mark the end of the second World War.

Xi did however meet with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who was in Beijing for the same events, as was Russian President Putin.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said “President Park Geun-hye and Secretary Choe Ryong Hae were both guests invited by China , and both received warm and friendly treatment from China,” ministry spokesman Hong Lei said, when asked if Xi and Choe met aside from when Xi greeted foreign guests at the beginning of the parade.

“China is dedicated to developing a friendly cooperative relationship with both North Korea and South Korea,” he said.

When asked by reporters if the lack of a confirmed Xi and Choe meeting was an indication of “China’s unhappiness” with its long time North Korean ally Hong said: “As for your supposition, this is incorrect” and refused to elaborate further.

Chinese media reports suggest that Choe and other North Korean officials spent less that 24 hours in China, leaving for home after the parade.

China watchers and experts say South Korean leader Park’s meeting with Xi, the sixth time the two have met, demonstrated improving relations between the two countries. They say if Xi did not meet with the North Korean delegation, it was a very public notification that China is becoming frustrated with North Korea, citing North Korea’s rejection of talks, its continued threats of war against its enemies, and its nuclear ambitions, as major sticking points.

Just last month North and South Korea appeared to be on course for a military confrontation following a rare exchange of artillery fire over their border and threats of war from North Korea over vocal propaganda messages blasted into North Korea from the South.

The experts say despite China being North Korea’s only significant supporter, it wants agreements reached during talks in meetings between the U.S. China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan to be honored. The same applies to United Nations resolutions. Several efforts to restart the talks which took place six years ago have failed.

China which is the world’s biggest exporter is South Korea’s largest trading partner and is one of only a handful of countries that runs a trading surplus with China.

Americans Took A Record Few Number Of Paid Vacation Days In 2015

News

America’s number of unused vacation days reached a 40 year high last year, totaling almost 170 million days. The time is estimated by researchers at Oxford Economics to amount to $52 billion in lost benefits, and seems to be due to a mixture of guilt and fear by American workers.

Currently, every U.S. worker fails to use just five paid vacation days per year. Some firms have attempted to incentivize increased usage of vacation days, but workers still delay taking time off until the end of the year, or take none at all.

In addition, the culture of constant connection to the office that has evolved over recent years makes some see a vacation as pointless, since they can never truly take their mind off work. Others were afraid of all the catching up that would be needed when they did return.

A Brooklyn native who works in Manhattan, Gina Femia’s attitude towards constant connection to the office seemed to display a sense of Stockholm syndrome, “I don’t even unplug on the weekend! I don’t even unplug at night!…I love my job so it’s coming from a place of desire rather than necessity. My bosses definitely don’t expect us to be on our email post-work hours—but we all do it anyway.”

John de Graaf is attempting to change the attitude towards vacation as president of Take Back Your Time (TBYT). He commented on the issue, “The United States has never indicated that as a country we take vacation time seriously. We are the only industrial country that does not mandate vacation days and 25% of our workers receive none of them at all.”

However, the desire for a change doesn’t seem to be there. Hotels.com set up a petition titled the Vacation Equality Project, which only received 13,000 signatures, far short of the 100,000 required to mandate a formal response by the White House.

Despite that, TBYT has set a goal for 2017 to increase the number of vacation days used per American employee by one day a year.

Some companies are attempting to change the situation by offering unlimited days off and team calendars in order to facilitate scheduling between coworkers. The note-taking tech firm Evernote introduced such a program in 2012 and also offered $1,000 a year if employees took a real vacation away from home. America’s work culture prevailed though, as CEO Phil Libin failed to take his own vacation within one year of the program’s start.

New Blood Tests Shows A Person’s Biological Age Can Be Over 20 Years Different Than Their Birth Age

Health & Wellness

Scientists have discovered a novel new way of determining just how old an individual’s body really is. The new research posits that though our chronological age, in terms of years, is well known, our biological age, in terms of how healthy the internal body is, varies widely even for similar age groups.

The new research may be the key for early detection and curing of age related illnesses like Alzheimer’s.

The research was conducted by a team of scientists from King’s College London, Duke University, and Karolinska Institute in Sweden. The study, published Monday in the journal Genome Biology, looked at the makeup of both DNA and RNA of 700 apparently healthy 70 year olds. The participants were found to be varying in their “true” ages by up to 20 years, despite having a similar chronological age. The “oldest” among them was 80 years old and the “youngest” 60.

The team reported that by analyzing thousands of brain, blood and muscle samples from the patients for over 20 years, they were able to narrow down 150 genes that differed. From those genes, they were able to draft a score sheet for ageing that they could use to determine how quickly a person’s body was ageing.

The scientists put it simply that the human body is made up of DNA, which is made up of RNA. Through taking different RNA from different parts of the body, they could figure out accurately a person’s “true” age.

Professor James Timmons, the author of the study, said, “We use birth year, or chronological age, to judge everything from insurance premiums to whether you get a medical procedure or not. Most people accept that all 60-year-olds are not the same, but there has been no reliable test for underlying biological age. Our discovery provides the first robust molecular signature of biological age in humans and should be able to transform the way that “age” is used to make medical decisions.”

The researchers concluded that through testing middle aged people, those with a higher risk of contracting age related illnesses such as dementia could be put on early preventive steps.
Timmons expressed high optimism that the sheets would be made available to practitioners by next year. However, the NHS has to issue an approval for it first.

Dr. Eric Karran, from Alzheimer’s Research UK said, “One of the biggest questions in human biology is how we age, and how this process impacts our wider health and risk for conditions like Alzheimer’s. This study suggests a way to measure a person’s “biological age” and could reveal insights into the ageing process and why some people are more susceptible to age-related health conditions.”

The research will be a definite game changer in the fight against age related illnesses. Through early detection and preventive remedies, illnesses such as dementia and Alzheimer’s will be a thing of the past, should the program be approved.

Researchers Looking To Attract Wild Jaguars Find Strange Solution: Obsession By Calvin Klein

Culture

Researchers that study the wild jaguars of Guatemala have long had difficulty taking a census of the number of animals in the 8,100 acre Maya Biosphere Reserve. They recently discovered a new method to help their study from an unlikely source, Obsession for Men cologne by Calvin Klein.

Researchers applied the fragrance near their motion-activated camera systems, which led to the cats approaching and rubbing against the scent long enough to be recorded.

Cats engage in a “rubbing” behavior in order to deposit their own scents as well as acquiring the scents that appeal to them. It turns out that Obsession contains Civetone, a chemical that was previously obtained from the nocturnal civet, and vanilla. The combination of these two is believed to be causing the attraction of these jaguars who seek to replace the civetone scent with their own by licking off and then rubbing against it, in what is likely to be a territorial display.

Roan Balas McNab of the Wildlife Conservation Society in Guatemala stated, “We’re just starting to get an idea of how jaguars behave in their habitat. Before we used Obsession for Men we weren’t able to get these images at all. What we thing is that the civetone resembles some sort of territorial marking to the jaguar, and so it responds by rubbing its own scent on it.”

The fragrance from Calvin Klein is unique, because many other scents that were tested could only hold a large cat’s attention for a few seconds, while Obsession was shown to work on cheetahs at a Bronx Zoo for around 11 minutes.

Jaguars are difficult to study due to their solitary nature, roaming in areas of up to 25 miles. This, coupled with the jaguar’s 2000 psi bite, form the reasoning for the camera observation strategy used by researchers.

BBC To Launch Radio Service In North Korea

Entertainment News

With its goal of expanding “democracy and the free press,” the British Broadcasting Corporation (“BBC”) plans to launch radio broadcasts to North Korea for the first time and commence new television and/or digital services in Russia. The BBC claims there are “democratic deficits” in these countries and the massive media conglomerate wishes to fix the problem.

The announcement to push into North Korea and Russia comes at a time when the BBC is under increasing political pressure to justify its size in an all-encompassing digital age. The company also faces severe budget cuts.

Tony Hall, the BBC’s director general stated that, “[The World Service] is a service we want to strengthen and expand. My own strong view is that this is one area where the country’s voice could be much stronger – especially in the Middle East, India and Russia and the states that used to make up the Soviet Union.”

The launch of this new initiative also comes at a time when state-sponsored rivals such as Al-Jazeera and RT (previously known as Russia Today) have risen on the scene. Both of these entities now have extensive operations in the United Kingdom.

A BBC source proffers that, “This is about Britain’s place in the world. It is above the politics of the debates about the BBC’s future. It has to be a national priority. Other news outlets are growing globally and many do not share our traditions and values. We have a strong commitment to uphold global democracy through accurate, impartial and independent news. There should no longer be any no-go countries for the World Service.”

As part of this plan, the BBC seeks to strengthen and expand its digital presence in Russia utilizing YouTube or its Russian counterpart RuTube, and will explore the possibility of establishing a Russian satellite television channel.

With respect to North Korea, the BBC hopes to emit short wave radio broadcasts in the country. Presently, North Korea’s citizens are cut off from the rest of the world almost completely as they have no access to the worldwide Internet and they are unable to make calls outside of North Korea. The United States-funded Voice of America (“VOA”) and Radio Free Asia (“RFA”) both make unauthorized broadcasts in Korean to the country. However, those that are caught listening to such unauthorized foreign broadcasts can be punished severely.

Unlike the United States and South Korea, North Korea does not view the United Kingdom as such a threat. The BBC hopes that its plans might not trigger such a harsh reaction from the communist state.

The BBC, which is 93 years old, is facing a major revamp as the British government criticizes the company for stifling commercial competition and for airing unbalanced political coverage. In fact, earlier this summer, the British government stated that it planned to look at whether the BBC should be scaled back and whether its major source of funding – the $222 license fee paid by users – should be restructured.

Hall stated that despite its grand vision with the Worldwide Service, he acknowledges that some of BBC’s services will be reduced or eliminated altogether. He further stated that BBC’s rivals will soon have access to some of BBC’s material and platforms.

Iraq Uses Newly Purchased U.S. F-16s To Strike ISIS Targets

News

Iraq has used its new U.S. acquired F-16 fighter jets to conduct air strikes against ISIS for the first time. The U.S. fighter jets will mark a turning point in Iraq’s offensive against a terror group keen on establishing a caliphate within the country and ultimately the world.

Iraq defense officials confirmed the use of the first four U.S. made F-16 fighter jets against ISIS on Sunday. Lt. Gen. Anwar Hama Amin said “Fifteen airstrikes were carried out in the past four days.” The airstrikes were made in the regions of Salaheddin and Kirkuk, north of the capital city, Baghdad.

Defense minister Khaled al-Obaidi said the strikes had achieved “important results” and that the jets would make “an impact on the conduct of operations in the future.”

The four supersonic jets were the first among 36 fighter jets the U.S. had pledged to sell to Iraq last year. The planes had been a major source of tension between the two countries with Iraq accusing the U.S. of delaying their arrival into the country.

However, U.S. officials had sighted a number of concerns inhibiting the jets’ arrival in Iraq. One of which was that no Iraqi air force soldier had been trained to fly the machines. This resulted in the U.S. converting its Arizona air base to an F-16 training ground for Iraqi pilots.

Insecurity in Iraq, where Balad Air Base was not considered safe, and the delay in equipping the F-16s with full range missiles and artillery also contributed to their prolonged arrival.

Iraq ambassador to the U.S. Lukman Faily had said in July that the jets would mark a critical turning point for the country’s spirited battle with the insurgents. “As Iraqi security forces, popular volunteers and local tribal fighters begin a major offensive to liberate key towns in Anbar, the arrival of the F-16 jets provides a much-needed boost to our air power capabilities that will allow us to target Daesh bomb-making factories and terrorist training camps,” he had said, referring to ISIS with their local name.

The U.S. has affirmed its commitment to partnering with Iraq against ISIS. From a statement by Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook on Sunday, “The United States is committed to building a strategic partnership with Iraq and the Iraqi people and we will continue to work with the Government of Iraq on the delivery of the remaining aircraft as they become available within the framework of the production schedule.”

The F-16 fighter jets will mark a new dawn for Iraq’s fight with a well-armed enemy. Previous airstrikes were performed using the outdated Sukhoi Su-25 jets, the Cessna Caravan turboprop and several helicopters. The new war machines will see Iraq mount a better campaign against an enemy threatening to break up the entire Middle East but it remains to be seen if it will be enough to stop the rapidly expanding terror network.

This Week’s Launch Of Apple TV Will Show A Strategy Shift From Streaming Into Gaming

Finance

It seems it isn’t just tech heavyweights like Google and Amazon that are making big pushes into the lucrative world of online gaming. According to reports over the weekend smartphone giant Apple will make gaming a key piece of its new and improved Apple TV product, which it is expected to unveil on Wednesday.

Sources briefed on Apple’s plans revealed that the new product is expected to be priced at around $150 and will contain a better graphics processor, a new remote control that doubles as a controller and an app store specifically for purchasing games.

While the general consensus of Wall Street analysts is that Apple would have considerable difficulty in luring users from high end gaming consoles like the Xbox and Playstation it appears Apple understands this and will go after casual gamers who do not want, or need, a high-end console.

At its event on Wednesday Apple is widely expected to release new iPhones and a new version of its Apple TV television streaming box.

Apple refused to comment on the latest rumors.

ESPN Blames Cord Cutters For Low Viewership But Is Political Programming To Blame?

Finance

One thing is clear. ESPN is losing large numbers of viewers every year. What is not so clear is the main reason for the loss of viewers. While many analysts believe that the phenomenon of “cord cutting” – the practice of cancelling expensive cable and satellite subscriptions in favor of other more inexpensive platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. – is the primary reason, other analysts believe that as ESPN spends more of its programming time offering political commentary rather than simply airing the games and pure sports commentary the new focus is driving users away.

It seems like ESPN now devotes less airtime to Sportscenter’s Top 10 Plays and the actual games themselves than it does to news commentary of the political issue of the day. The trend is being followed by many in the sports business in an effort to diversify their product and broaden the appeal.

One of the most egregious examples of this “political football” was actually not aired on ESPN but on NBC Sports. But, it illustrates what is taking place on ESPN and other sports networks.

A few years ago on NBC Sports during a nationally televised NFL game, Bob Costas spent several minutes offering his political views regarding gun control in America. Rather than just tuning in to watch the game and spend a few hours escaping the reality of the mundane, viewers were “treated” to political commentary on a sensitive political issue.

The question becomes: Should a sports program really devote time to something that is not about the game? Are sports viewers tuning in for news commentary?

Apparently, many ESPN viewers are responding to that question in the negative. This is illustrated by the fact that many ESPN viewers are simply not watching the network anymore. If viewers were watching the network on alternative platforms, ESPN and its parent company Disney, would be sure to point that out.

But they are not.

Viewers are not tuning into the network on other services or alternative platforms, they simply are not viewing the network anywhere.

And while cord cutting is likely the reason many viewers are not viewing ESPN anymore, it is hard to ignore the fact that many viewers are not watching the network because of the near-constant news and commentary on issues such as domestic violence, gun control, and the like.

Not that these are not important issues – because undoubtedly they are.

But, watching a game, the highlights and the sports commentary related to the game is not as it used to be. Rather than spending a few hours going nuts over a team, escaping reality and becoming the best armchair quarterback ever, viewers are subject to the often depressing and draining politically charged news topics of the day.

So, it seems that viewers are not simply cutting the cord, they are tuning out altogether.

Police Find That One Third Of The Meat Sold In China Is From Smuggled Endangered Species

Culture

More meat from endangered animals is being smuggled into China than ever before according to new police reports. Consumers would be shocked to realize most of their meat was actually smuggled into the country, despite almost always being labeled as locally bred. China’s meat market is the largest in the world and has attracted a number of illegal meat smuggling rings that do not draw lines between endangered species meat and allowed meat.

Police in Yongjia county in Zhejiang province, eastern China, recently busted an illegal meat smuggling ring responsible for distributing over $15.7 million in rare wildlife. The meat, which included live giant salamanders, turtle doves, leopard cats and pangolins, was distributed to more than 10 provinces in China. Frozen animal limbs and bear paws also featured in the assortment of game.

Police across the country have been shocked to discover that more than 20 per cent of the country’s leisure farms and restaurants were actually involved in the trade, far higher than initially expected.

The findings mean that about one in three Chinese restaurants and small-scale meat suppliers are engaged in the illicit trade of endangered animals.

Chinese authorities reported that the illegally distributed game was first purchased from the ring in the regions of Guangdong and Guangxi before being delivered to restaurant kitchens and markets. Before the journey, the smuggled animals would be tranquilized so as not to be discovered. They would then be revived after crossing the border by being injected with stimulants. Frozen animal meat would have their appearance improved by bleaching with hydrogen peroxide, illustrating both the environmental and food safety concerns with the smuggling.

Plenty of endangered species meat is smuggled into mainland China under Pu’er city in southwestern Yunnan, bordering Vietnam. In China’s Guangzhou market, you can find plenty of wild game offerings including Vietnamese crocodiles. It is estimated that approximately 100,000 Vietnamese crocodiles were eaten in Guangdong last year alone, 70 per cent of which were illegally smuggled.

The meat smuggling business has earned a reputation for being especially lucrative. Pangolin meat delivered alive to Zheijang province can be sold for $220-250 a kilo. Bear’ meat can fetch $250 a kilo and frozen game $95 a kilo. A restaurant purchasing a macaque at $63 from the illegal rings can sell the same for $157.

Police busts on the illegal rings have increased by up to three times this year. The scale of smuggling has become so rampant it is infuriating legal meat importers. They are now urging the government to get rid of excise duty levied on their imported meat as it results in theirs being up to 60 per cent more expensive than the smuggled meat.

“You have people stuck with meat on the Vietnam side of the border they can’t sell. They start taking it up and down the river and breaking it into smaller units to bring it in,” said one trader.

The illegal trade in live smuggled meat is causing a severe wildlife crisis among China’s neighbors and fuelling health concerns among Chinese authorities. While authorities seem to be doing more the scale of the problem is so vast it will take significant time and investment to have a material impact on the trade.

Scientists Uncover Hidden Stone Monuments Just Feet From Famous Stonehenge

Culture

Archaeologists in England say they have discovered remains of a previously undetected stone monument within two miles of the famous Stonehenge. Using ground penetrating radar, a series of nearly 90 standing stones were found hidden under three feet of earth near a former discovery known as Durrington Walls. The discovery adds another chapter to the extensive network of monuments in the English countryside.

Located above the new discovery, Durrington Walls is believed to have been built one century after Stonehenge, and dwarfs its more famous neighbor. The original Stonehenge is believed to date back 4,500 years and the new monument is believed to have been built during or before the same time period.

Discovered as part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project (SHLP), the discovered stones measure up to nearly fifteen feet in size, dwarfing those at Stonehenge which measure just under seven feet. They are found along the south-eastern border of Durrington Walls in a c-shaped design. The material of the stones is currently unknown, but is suspected to be sarsen sandstone, the same material that composes the monoliths at Stonehenge.

Professor Vince Gaffney, who is a leading archaeologist with the project stated, “We’re looking at one of the largest stone monuments in Europe and it has been under our noses for something like 4,000 years…These things are theatrical. They’re designed to impress and impose; to give the idea of authority to the living and the dead.”

Current theories about such monuments hold that they were centered around the summer and winter solstices, due to their alignments with these astronomical phenomena. Remains of animal teeth near the Durrington Walls were isotopically analyzed and support the theory that individuals may have travelled from as far away as the Scottish Highlands in order to take part in the ceremonies.

Facebook Sued, Again, For Building A Secret Database Of ‘Faceprints’ Without Informing Users

Finance

For the fourth time this year, a lawsuit has been filed against social media giant Facebook with regards to the company’s face-recognition software. The class action lawsuit, filed in Illinois, claims that Facebook’s use of biometrics violates a unique Illinois privacy law entitled the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”).

Essentially, the plaintiffs claim that Facebook violates BIPA because it collects and stores faceprints of its users without obtaining informed written consent. The lawsuit is federal because the proposed class of plaintiffs number in the millions, Facebook’s headquarters are located in California, and the user bringing the suit resides in Illinois.

In fact, the latest lawsuit is brought by a person who does not even have a Facebook account. He insists, however, that Facebook unlawfully created a template of his face when a Facebook user uploaded a picture of him.

The complaint states that, “Facebook is actively collecting, storing and using – without providing notice, obtaining informed written consent or publishing data retention policies – the biometrics of its users and unwitting non-users . . . Specifically, Facebook has created, collected and stored over a billion ‘face templates’ (or ‘face prints’) – highly detailed geometric maps of the face – from over a billion individuals, millions of whom reside in the State of Illinois.”

A representative from Facebook states that the lawsuits are without merit and that the company will defend itself vigorously. However, as the issue is largely untested as there is no legal precedent, the case could play out in a handful of different ways.

Mary Dixon, legislative director for the ACLU of Illinois stated that Illinois “[was] ahead of the curve” in passing BIPA. “I think it’d be hard to pass similar initiatives now given the intense lobby against some of the protections [Illinois] [was] able to advance.”

Indeed, there have been several efforts to create some sort of federal regulations regarding the commercial use of biometrics. However, earlier this year, a number of privacy-rights groups withdrew from discussions on how to create and draft guidelines for face-recognition technology.

Essentially, after months of negotiations, the groups grew very frustrated by the efforts of industry trade associations that would not agree to even the slightest of personal protections, including a regulation that would require companies to obtain the written consent of individuals before collecting and storing faceprints of consumers. Alvaro M. Bedoya, a Georgetown University Professor, points out that, “When not a single trade association would agree to that, we just realized we weren’t dealing with people who were there to negotiate. We were there to deal basically with people who wanted to stop the process, or make it something that was watered down.”

As Illinois is only one of two states (the other being Texas) that have some sort of law regulating biometrics practice, other states are watching the lawsuit closely as they hope to gain some guidelines for drafting their own regulations.

As Bedoya aptly points out, “You can’t turn off your face. Yes, it’s 2015, and yes, we’re tracked in a million different ways, but for most of those forms of tracking, I can still turn it off it I want to.”

Canadian Doctors Are Now Legally Able To Prescribe You Exercise

Health & Wellness

Doctors in the Canadian province of Quebec have added a new tool to their long list of prescribable remedies: They can now give prescriptions for exercise to patients. The doctors are seeking new ways of combatting the country’s huge obesity problem, one that is eating away at the country’s young and old in equal measure, that doesn’t require drugs.

Quebec’s over 8000 general practitioners will each get general prescription pads where they will give patients direct instructions on which exercise to do and for how long. The initiative, a program from the Quebec Federation of General Practitioners and the nonprofit organization Grand Defi Pierre Lavoie, seeks to encourage healthier living among the province’s old and young.

The unique pads will allow doctors to recommend which types of exercise to give patients in form of “exercise cubes.” The cubes are the measure of 15 minutes of physical activity. An average dose involves two cubes a day, amounting to half an hour’s exercise, five days a week.

According to Quebec doctors, the program will also help patients reduce their risk of contracting high blood pressure, stroke, cholesterol and higher risks of heart attack.

Dr. Mark Roper said, “It’s as powerful as some of the pills we give, and less side effects.”
Patients get to choose their desired form of physical activity which may include swimming, cycling, walking and kayaking. The prescriptions will match the patients’ physical activity abilities, with regard to health and fitness level. All age groups will be subject to the exercise cubes prescription and in some schools in Quebec, the program is already active.

Doctors predict that in some cases, the exercise programs will take away the need for traditional medicines. Dr. Roper said, “We actually take them off medications because they’ve come down 20 lbs. (and) they don’t need their blood pressure pills.”

Quebec’s health ministry said researchers would follow the program for up to three years to monitor its results.

Montreal Heart Institute director of prevention Martin Juneau said, “Doctors are showing that they take this seriously. It’s not just advice. This way, it’s a medical prescription.”

Canada’s obesity problem is worrying. One in four adults and one in 10 children are clinically obese. These are six million Canadians requiring clinical prescriptions to get rid of excess weight. Doctors have blamed the excess weight for various lifestyle diseases including type 2 Diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis and cancer.

Exercise prescriptions are an ingenious way of curbing growing obesity figures while simultaneously warding off lifestyle diseases. The province of Quebec will see an increased uptake of physical activity among their people.

Traditional West Point First Year Pillow Fight Marred By Violence

News

The annual first year cadet pillow fight at the renowned West Point military academy is likely to have a new set of rules introduced after this year’s event turned into a bloody brawl.

Thirty cadets were treated for injuries including concussion, dislocated shoulders, wounds, and broken bones, when the annual rite of passage event which is meant to celebrate the end of summer training and classes, and foster class spirit, got out of hand.

An academy spokesman said the annual pillow fight, a tradition which dates back to 1897, went wrong when some cadets reportedly stuffed the helmets they are encouraged to wear inside pillow cases, and beat their classmates with these.

Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Kasker said “West Point applauds the cadets’ desire to build esprit and regrets the injuries to our cadets. We are conducting appropriate investigations into the causes of the injuries.”

Any hope the academy had of keeping the incident under wraps went out the window when some cadets posted the pillow fight on YouTube. Photos of bloodied cadets were also posted on Twitter.

Kasker said upperclassmen who oversee the event require cadets to wear helmets but the posted video shows many did not.

Many cadets were unfazed by the injuries. One female cadet told media that “At first the body count, people were joking about it. My friends were really excited. And right after, when we learned how many people had gotten hurt, everyone felt totally hard-core. I know it looks weird from the outside, but it really bonds us.”

Another first year cadet said he had been told by his upperclassman commander “If you don’t come back with a bloody nose, “you didn’t try hard enough.”

Kasker said there were no plans to end the yearly brawl even though this was not the first year things had gone astray. The 2013 annual pillow fight was cancelled in 2013 after some cadets were injured the previous year when an overzealous cadet put a lockbox in his pillow case.

Hackers Find Yet Another Way To Take Control Of Most Modern Vehicles

Finance

New research has found that the laser ranging systems (lidar) used by a majority of self driving vehicles, as well as used for blind spot detection, to sense objects and obstacles can be hacked by a system costing just $60. The vehicle hacking is not only limited to manual vehicles but even self driving cars who rely heavily on the technology.

The latest findings show, simply, that no American vehicle is safe from hackers.

A security researcher working with Security Innovation, Jonathan Petit, established the new system of hacking self driving vehicles. Petit said he had developed a system that took echoes of fake cars or from a pedestrian or a stationary wall, and used them to trick a driverless vehicle to think that something was directly ahead of it.

The self driving vehicle would be forced to slow down or even stop altogether. Petit said they could also ambush the car with multiple signals, totally confusing it to the extent it could not move at all.

Petit described the setup he used in a paper he is due to present at the Black Hat Europe security conference this November. He said, “It’s kind of a laser pointer, really. And you don’t need the pulse generator when you do the attack. You can easily do it with a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino. It’s really off the shelf.”

Petit said all he had to do was record the pulses from a IBEO lux lidar system, encrypt and encode them, then play them at a later point. Through this system, Petit could make multiple spoof copies of vehicles, walls and even pedestrians from 65 feet to a fifth of a mile away from the exposed lidar unit.

The attacks were as effective when carried out in front of the vehicle as they were at its side and even behind.

The researcher said that the sensor systems of self driving vehicles were actually their most vulnerable points. Just recently, other security researchers had hacked vehicle GPS devices and wireless tire sensors.

Petit said, “This is a key point, where the input starts. If a self-driving car has poor inputs, it will make poor driving decisions.”

Petit has said that the aim of his research is to enhance security for passengers on the road, especially when all control is given to machines. Petit is calling for the adaptation of strong misbehavior systems to cross check real and fake signals in self driving vehicles.
The future of our roads will be driverless. However, that future will be compromised if humans have to cede control to machines that can be hacked randomly. Self driving car manufacturers have got to place passenger security before anything else.

DEA Claims Victory After Two Pakistani Nationals Extradited To U.S. For Aiding Colombia’s FARC Rebels

News

Two Pakistani citizens have been extradited to the U.S. to face narco-terrorism charges after a lengthy legal battle. The two Pakistanis nationals are accused of conspiring with a foreign based terror organization, which according to U.S. law necessitated their immediate arrest and extradition.

Pirzada Khawaja Abdul Wahab Chishti and Przada Khawaja Abdul Hameed Chishti were both arrested in Spain back in 2014. The two were arrested with codefendants Ali Danish and Sohail Kaskar.

The U.S. had been seeking the extradition of all the accused. However, only those of Wahab Chishti and Hameed Chishti have been secured. The two appeared before a federal Manhattan court judge on Friday.

On Friday, U.S. prosecutors alleged that the two had been attempting to provide material support to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a group flagged by the U.S. authorities as a terror organization.

The assistance is said to have included the sale of several pounds of heroin and also Russian-made missiles to aid the organization’s drug trafficking business.

Prosecutors allege both Wahab Chishti, 49, and Hameed Chishti, 47, had met with members of the terror organization on various dates between 2013 and 2014. Their identities were given by undercover U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informants posing as members of the group.

A statement from the DEA Special Agent in charge Mark Hamlet said, “Hameed and Wahab Chishti illustrate once again that drug trafficking and terror conspiracies often intersect, support, and facilitate each other’s dangerous and potentially deadly plots.”

The charges the two will face include conspiring to commit narco-terrorism, providing material foreign support to a terror organization, selling of surface to air missile launching systems and the importation of heroin. If convicted, the two will face life in prison.

The U.S. is still seeking the extradition of the other two co defendants Sohail Kaskar and Ali Danish.

The U.S. has put its foot down on the fight against drug cartels aiding terror organizations through funding and sale of armory. To make the world a better place, narcotics gangs have to be stopped before their ties with terrorists grow so deep it is impossible to differentiate the two.

Canada Joins Growing List Of Countries That Allow Environmental Lawsuits To Be Launched By Foreigners

Finance

The Supreme Court of Canada yesterday gave the go-ahead to a group of Ecuadorian villagers to ask an Ontario court to assist them in collecting a $9.5-billion judgment against oil giant Chevron Corp which they obtained in Ecuador.

The villagers claimed that Texaco Inc., a company that was bought by Chevron in 1993, polluted 1,500 square kilometres of Ecuadorian Amazon water and land between 1972 and 1990.

The unanimous ruling, upholds a similar finding reached by the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2013 over the 20 year long legal battle.

The court found the original lawsuit was legally and properly brought in Ecuador and that the Ecuadorian plaintiffs had the right to bring the judgement claim against Chevron as it had been able to serve the claim at Chevron’s office in Mississauga, Ontario.

“Traditional, presence-based jurisdiction is satisfied,” Justice Clement Gascon wrote in the seven-judge ruling.

The court threw out Chevron’s arguments that because the company did not have many assets in Ontario it would not be right to hear the case there.

“In today’s globalized world and electronic age, to require that a judgment creditor wait until the foreign debtor is present or has assets in the province before a court can find that it has jurisdiction in recognition and enforcement proceedings would be to turn a blind eye to current economic reality,” Justice Gascon wrote.

A spokesman for the Ecuadorian villagers, Humberto Piaguaje, said the Supreme Court decision meant the “beginning of the end of Chevron’s abusive and obstructionist litigation strategy” to avoid paying the judgment, although the decision does not mean the villagers yet have money in the bank.

Justice Gascon wrote “A finding of jurisdiction does nothing more than afford the plaintiffs the opportunity to seek recognition and enforcement of the Ecuadorian judgment.”

Legal experts say the case will now return to an Ontario judge, who will decide if the Ecuadorian judgment will be legally recognized and enforced in Canada.

Rise Of ‘Predictive Policing’ Raises Fears Of Computer Generated Discrimination

News

In the 2002 blockbuster, Minority Report, the character played by Tom Cruise is a police officer who arrests people for the crimes they are about the commit rather than the crimes they have already committed. Such an ability to predict crimes before they happen is something law enforcement would love to possess, and it appears that some semblance of crime prediction is now a reality.

Certain police departments across the nation have systems where algorithms produce lists of previously arrested and convicted individuals that are most likely to commit another crime in the future. One major benefit of using such a data system is that the program lacks the bias oftentimes found in humans – either consciously or subconsciously.

For example, the Chicago Police Department is working with engineers at the Illinois Institute of Technology to create a predictive formula that will create a list of 400 individuals having the greatest chance of committing a violent crime in the future. Such a list will allow the department, with its limited resources, to concentrate where it needs to.

The algorithm evaluates a number of factors, including a person’s arrest histories, arrest histories of that person’s acquaintances and whether any friends or associates of that person have been a shooting victim. The algorithm’s developers state that the formula uses no ‘racial, neighborhood, or other such information’ and that it is ‘unbiased and quantitative.’

Others see the use of predictive algorithms as dangerous because the algorithms themselves may reflect biases inherent in the factors that are analyzed.

After all, the programs “learn” from examples provided and inputted by humans. So, if race is disproportionately represented in the data fed to the algorithm, the algorithm may infer and use race in making a decision regarding an individual.

Moreover, the number one factor used by the algorithms is poverty, and as of now, poverty is an issue that affects blacks more than any other population in America.

Despite these perceived problems, the algorithms can quickly and easily be modified and adapted to interpret large amounts of data and spit out predictions in real time. Some departments that used predictive algorithms have reported significant reductions in crime.

Most importantly, at a time when racial tensions and police mistrust are so high, law enforcement must be transparent about its efforts in fighting crime, including its use of predictive algorithms.

Google Will Let China Censor Its App Store In Order To Re-Enter The Lucrative Mainland Market

Finance

Google is making plans for a comeback presence in China with a version of Google Play that will comply with all Chinese censorship requirements in order to do so.

The company famously left China in 2010 following cyber-attacks that were sourced to the Chinese Government. At the time Google vowed to end censoring Chinese search results and redirected Chinese searches through Hong Kong. But now the experts say Google has indicated that to get back into China to gain control over its operating system, it was prepared to work with Chinese censorship laws, including blocking apps that the government deems “objectionable.”

Google has said it will also assist international app developers sell their “approved” products in China and help Chinese developers distribute their apps internationally.

The experts say Google wants to make a “Google-blessed version” of Android attractive to Chinese phone makers by offering “new incentives to upgrade Android phones to the latest versions of the operating system,” though it has not yet said what these incentives will be. Google initiatives like Android One and the Android Update Alliance offered in other countries have not done very well, so the experts say it’s not clear what Google would do in China to get better results.

Famous discount Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi uses a highly customized version of Google’s Android that contains no Google products and hence makes the company no money from hundreds of millions of installs.

Sources say that another Google wish list item is to introduce Android Wear into China where there are already a lot of non-Google Android made wearables, but they are without the official licensed version of Wear which uses Google Play Services.

Google’s move into China, say the experts, could take place as soon as this Fall and would give the company a foothold in the lucrative Chinese Android marketplace, even though there would be stiff competition from local companies like Xiaomi, who are unlikely to revert to a Google-made version unless given considerable incentives.

U.S. Pressure, Checkered Past, Led To Downfall Of Guatemalan President

Entertainment News

Former Guatemalan president Otto Perez was pressured by the U.S. this year to eliminate corrupt officials in his administration in a move that appears to have led to his accusation of corruption in recent weeks. He resigned Wednesday after making the now ill-fated decision of allowing the country’s Commission Against Impunity to continue operations.

The pressure on Perez began during visits by U.S. officials this year, which were related to $20 billion in aid money that was being requested for the “Alliance for Prosperity.” The initiative aims to help prevent child migration from central american countries including Guatemala.

Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador were the main source of a mass influx of unaccompanied minors at the U.S. southern border this year, which led to the U.S. visits.

President Obama apologized in April in recognition of previously harmful policies that the U.S. pursued in the region, including the CIA’s support of the Contra rebels in Nicaragua during the 80s, as well as actions in Guatemala.

Perez came to power in Guatemala in 2012 using a platform that included promises of drug legalization, amid widespread agreement on the failure of the United States government’s War on Drugs.

During the 1980s, Perez was an acting general in the country’s military, engaging in genocidal policies against Mayan populations there as part of a civil war which lasted from 1960 to 1996.

Perez denied accusations related to the matter in 2012, despite the fact that only small portions of a 1999 report detailing the actions were translated into Mayan languages.

Regarding the recent resignation of Perez, a Guatemalan official familiar with the matter stated, “”I’m not justifying that they impose conditions on us, but they’re right. The corruption in Guatemala is intolerable. At the end of the day, they do it for our own good – but it hurts.”

Toyota Just Announced Its Making A Huge Push Into Artificial Intelligence For Its Cars

Finance

Toyota, the largest car maker in the world, has announced that it plans to pave the way to the future of vehicles by heavily focusing on the research and development of artificial intelligence (“AI”) with applications to safer, smarter vehicles.

The company, mirroring a trend within its home country of Japan, is also looking at designing to improve lives at home. The company states that its major push into AI and robotics is critical for addressing the challenges that society faces both now and in the future.

Toyota stresses that its primary, immediate goal is to improve vehicle safety and save lives on the road. The company further points out that its goal is not to create a fully autonomous car, like the ones Google, Apple and Uber are developing. Rather, Toyota is working on “assistive autonomy,” where vehicles will continuously sense and interpret the environment around the driver, ready to intervene once it detects a harmful or dangerous situation.

Toyota is going all in and the director of this research, Dr. Gill Pratt, stated that, “Our long-term goal is to make a car that is never responsible for a crash.” He further proffers that such intelligent cars will “allow older people to be able to drive, and help prevent the one and a half million deaths that occur as a result of cars every single year around the world.”

Dr. Pratt will collaborate and work with Professor Daniela Rus, head of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (“CSAIL”), as well as Professor Fei-Fei Li, director of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (“SAIL”).

In fact, Toyota has pledged $50 million over five years to the two laboratories, funding specific lines or research which Dr. Pratt amounts to “a very strong effort in terms of R&D.” Dr. Pratt will oversee the collaborative research and will “direct and accelerate these research activities and [their] application to intelligent vehicles and robotics.”

It is unusual to hear companies make such strong claims but Toyota and Dr. Pratt reiterate that, “Our goal, which is a little different than the approach that other take, is to build intelligence to help the car be really a guardian angel for you and keeping you from having a wreck. We want to enhance the fun of driving for the human being while making it far more safe.” The company hopes to do this by improving and expanding on already-existing safety features and to invent new ones.

So, rather than direct its immediate efforts towards developing and producing a self-driving car, Toyota is focused on the central AI component of autonomous driving. The “substantial” scope of Toyota’s commitment will be necessary for the significant work needed to create a “vehicle that will never crash.”

Google’s Waze Division Accused Of Stealing Data From Competitors

Finance

In an interesting intellectual property lawsuit between two mapping services, we get a glimpse of how far companies will go to protect their work. Specifically, the Google-owned app, Waze, which offers information on traffic learned from crowdsourcing, is under fire for stealing data from competitor PhantomAlert.

The mapping service PhantomAlert touts on its website that it “is a must-have to keep you safe and ticket-free. Audible and visual warnings alert you of known road hazards and potential traffic ticket environments.” The company now asserts that prior to Google acquiring Waze in 2013 for $1.1 billion, someone from Waze stole information from PhantomAlert’s proprietary mapping database.

One reason this case is so interesting is because of the evidence that PhantomAlert will use to attempt to prove its case. Basically, digital map makers embed into their maps certain “paper towns.” These paper towns are in fact fake and made-up landmarks and locations that do not exist in the real world. The purpose of placing the paper towns in their digital maps is so that companies can determine if any other company or entity has stolen their proprietary information. Essentially, if a company’s fictitious location shows up on a competitor’s map – it knows data was stolen.

This is what is alleged in the PhantomAlert case against Waze and Google. PhantomAlert claims that it was able to find its paper towns in the Waze map app, using both the Apple and Android operating systems.

PhantomAlert’s complaint states that, “Among other methods, PhantomAlert determined that Waze had copied its Points of Interest database by observing the presence of fictitious Points of Interest in the Waze application, which PhantomAlert had seeded into its own database for the purpose of detecting copying.”

PhantomAlert claims that Waze allegedly stole information sometime during 2010. That year, Waze had reached out PhantomAlert and suggested the two companies share mapping databases. PhantomAlert declined the offer, stating that Waze’s database was too small.

In the lawsuit, PhantomAlert is requesting the court to award not only economic damages, but also to order that Google shut down the Waze app altogether.

The First Low Cost Chinese Smartphone Maker To Enter The U.S. Just Took 8% Of The Market

Finance

The crowded U.S. market for cell phones has witnessed a rapid rise to fourth position in sales from Chinese manufacturer ZTE. This should strike fear in the hearts of those, such as Samsung, Motorola and HTC, that currently do a brisk business stateside.

Why should it strike fear? Because Xiaomi, Huawei and a host of other ultra low cost Chinese manufacturers haven’t entered the market yet. ZTE is the first but by no means last and all look set to enter within the next 12 months.

ZTE’s current $60 model, the “Maven,” sports hardware only a couple years behind the iPhone 6. And it is, again, just $60. That price is without subsidies and the company’s phones are currently available at T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint.

One year ago the company controlled four percent of the U.S. smartphone market, which has now risen to eight percent. Head of ZTE’s U.S. operations Lixin Cheng stated, “We came from nowhere, and now we are a solid force.”

Previous presence in the U.S. market was limited to the company’s routers and mobile operator switches. The U.S. House Intelligence Committee accused the company in 2012 of using that technology as a vector for Chinese spying, along with Huawei Technologies.

Cheng claims that ZTE was unfairly implicated in what was really a Huawei issue, and is betting that American consumers will not remember or care about the issue.

ZTE’s start in the U.S. was with prepaid phones and smaller carriers like MetroPCS, eventually moving up to offerings in major stores like Wal-Mart and Target. Although smartphone brands are prolific in China, ZTE is currently the only potential U.S. contender from the nation as its competitor Xiaomi has instead focused on emerging markets in Brazil and India. For the moment, at least.

Xiaomi is rumored to be thinking of entering the electronics market with a cut rate Chrome-based laptop early next year. The company currently sells headphones and its super-successful portable battery packs via an online store.

As part of its marketing campaign, ZTE has recruited the NBA’s Houston Rockets along with the Golden State Warriors and New York Knicks. More importantly, it has dramatically increased its lobbyist budget, which grew from $170,000 to $950,000 in the last four years.

The company was able to dramatically increase its smartphone shipments in 2015, but that has not translated into equally impressive revenue growth, which increased from $354 million to $369 million. Once the company’s presence becomes more established, it’s higher priced offerings may be able to have a better effect on revenues. For now it and it alone is dominating the low end of the U.S. smartphone market.

Experts Say That Contrary To Headlines Europe Can Easily Handle Influx Of Migrants

Entertainment News

As Europe’s migrant crisis continues to bite, analysts are coming forward to affirm that Europe can comfortably handle the surge in their refugees without a problem. Migrant experts have said Europe is well endowed beyond its own population’s capacity and that it can bear to maintain the influx in migrants.

Yet despite countries like Spain facing both decreasing and ageing populations, there seems to be considerable backlash in Europe to accepting migrants.

Human rights and migrants experts are now warning that the dramatic announcements of the surge in migrant population is being used to hide a clear fact, that Europe can comfortably accommodate the incoming refugees. According to the experts, though the numbers are growing, they are still not enough to crowd Europe’s capacity.

Ryan Schroeder, communications director at the International Organisation for Migrations Brussels, said, “From the images we see and a number of people we see it seems like the whole world is knocking on the door of Europe. Comparatively the European Union has the size, the population, the wealth and the resources to handle these increased flows. If Turkey and Lebanon are managing, one would think the EU as a whole can do that as well.”

According to statistics drawn from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, over 300,000 migrants travelled across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe this year. 200,000 have landed in Greece and 110,000 in Italy. From there, many have sought asylum in other more accommodative countries like Britain, Germany and Sweden. Comparatively, last year, 219,000 migrants came to Europe, the single largest displacement recorded since World War II.

To Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch executive director, the issue in question is politics, not capacity.

He said, “This ‘wave of people’ is more like a trickle when considered against the pool that must absorb it. The European Union’s population is roughly 500 million. The latest estimate of the numbers of people using irregular means to enter Europe this year via the Mediterranean or the Balkans is approximately 340,000. In other words, the influx this year is only 0.068 per cent of the EU’s population. Considering the EU’s wealth and advanced economy, it is hard to argue that Europe lacks the means to absorb these newcomers.”

He compared Europe’s influx to the U.S.’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, who account for 3.5 per cent of the country’s population, saying the “fear-mongering” was being used to dilute moral obligation.