Tokyo’s 1st AI Expo pushed computer technology limits. Robots detected human emotions and states of calmness as groups sat in meditation. Somehow, the states of minds of participants could be measured through headsets and represented on screen as flowers.
Also on display was facial recognition technology more advanced than anything previously seen.
Atsushi Kawamura, Demonstrator and Senior Researcher at Sensetime Japan Ltd., talked about the new strides his company has made.
“The idea of facial recognition has been out there in the past but the lack of accuracy prevented the technology from being used well. AI enhanced this accuracy enormously with the deep learning method, and I believe we’ve reached a level which enables us to use this technology in the real world.”
Robots were even on the convention floor predicting what wine would be tastiest to an individual’s taste buds. By first having a taste and then filling out a questionnaire, a robot would tell you what wine you’d like best.
Demonstrator and Employee of Logistics Solution Developer Vinx, Natsumi Hashimoto, talked about how the tech works.
“Each person feels sweetness or bitterness in different ways, so wine recommended by an expert may not necessarily taste good to a customer. But AI can accurately figure out your favorite taste and suggest the perfect bottle for you.”
The AI Expo hosts 110 exhibitors both from Japan and abroad. At least 63,000 visitors are expected. The expo is part of the larger Content Tokyo 2017 trade show which hosts seven different specialized themed exhibitions.
Mechanical exoskeletons that help people lift heavy weights, run or walk up steep or uneven terrain, or provide mobility to the disabled, are being used to help the large and growing elderly population in Japan.
Some 27 percent of Japan’s citizens were over 65 in 2016, according to the CIA World Factbook, compared to 15 percent in the United States and 10 percent in China.
The Ueda Group, which does distribution and storage management, has been using Panasonic’s Power Assist Suit (AWN-03) at its distribution center in Kawasaki, where employees have to lift and move heavy objects.
The suit senses a person’s motion, activating motors that help a person straighten up through electric power and by taking the pressure off the lower back and redistributing it to the thighs. Panasonic said the suit can reduce stress on the lower back by 33 pounds.
Over half of Ueda’s 100 employees at the distribution center use the suit. Employee Hiroaki Okutani, 57, was the first to one to adopt it.
“I was diagnosed with a slipped disc last year. While it has healed, I’ve worked very carefully ever since,” he said. “But wearing this [Power Assist suit], I can continue to work without worrying much about it,” said Okutani.
He said he hopes to keep working as long as his body lets him, and this suit may be able to extend that time.
Yuichi Hayashi, the head of logistics at Ueda, said the Power Assist Suit is also at least a partial solution to the problem of Japan’s aging workforce.
“To be honest, it is best to employ younger people because of their physical capabilities,” he said. “However, as it gets harder to secure those young workers due to the shrinking and ageing population of workers, in this situation, people in their 40s and 50s become our core labor force on the work floor.”
Panasonic released the Power Assist in 2015. It is also developing the “Ninja” or PLN-01 to help with walking or running up steep terrain and the “Power Loader” that has sensors in the feet and hands that power 20 motors to assist with physical labor. The company is also developing robotics that can help caregivers of the elderly move patients, and self-reliance technology that will help the elderly and disabled move without aid.
“Our mission is to help realize a power barrier-less society by offering a helping hand during manual labor and at other worksites,” said Hiromichi Fujimoto, president of Activelink Co., Ltd., the venture company owned by Panasonic that has been working on its exoskeletons.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google said on Friday it would stop scanning Gmail content for creating personalized ads from later this year, bringing the widely-used email service in line with its enterprise offering, G Suite.
The decision was outlined in a blog post by Google cloud computing chief Diane Greene, who joined the company in 2015 and has been responsible for the rapid growth of Google‘s cloud business.
Google‘s practice of analyzing incoming and outgoing emails of its free consumer Gmail users has been criticized on privacy concerns.
Google‘s G Suite business bundle have been gaining more enterprise users in the past year, with more than 3 million companies paying for the G Suite service, the company said.
Gmail has more than 1.2 billion users worldwide.
Reporting by Laharee Chatterjee; Editing by Arun Koyyur
Airbus and Boeing went to Paris hoping for business. Boeing came away better by far.
The Paris Air Show brings together airline representatives from around the world.
Both manufacturers hoped to get a lot of new orders.
Boeing’s new 737 MAX 10 attracted 443 buyers. Boeing also sold 125 MAX 8s to one customer, and another customer switched orders for 15 MAX 8s to MAX 10s. Boeing claimed a total of 571 planes for the weekend. According to CNN, the sales were worth $74.8 billion.
Airbus sold 326 planes—or, again according to CNN, 346 planes, worth some S42.2 billion
Is this a slower show than previous years, yes it is,” admitted Airbus CEO, John Leahy.
“Are we conceding that Boeing sold a few more airplanes than we did, yes. We’ve got 42 percent of the market at the Airshow for the last three days, they’ve got the rest,” he said.
Total sales for the weekend were almost double what the two firms did at least year’s marquee commercial air show, the Farnborough Air Show in the U.K.
Airbus is not conceding defeat long term.
“I think that this will be a down year for Airbus and Boeing in terms of orders but not in deliveries,” Leahy stated. “Production will be increasing through 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.”
Most of the orders were for smaller, single-aisle jets: Boeing’s 737 and Airbus’ A320neo. Jumbo jets were not selling.
Asian and Iranian airlines provided the bulk of the new orders. Iran is coming back from years under international sanctions.
Iran chose Airbus as a supplier—but even the last-minute deal left the French firm far behind Boeing in terms of new business gained.
Iran still needs to get international approval for its proposed purchases.
Boeing launched the biggest and most fuel-efficient plane yet in its 737 MAX jetliner series at the opening of the Paris Airshow on Monday, June 19.
Competition is stiff these days in the airline industry. Customers are demanding lighter, more fuel-efficient planes that can carry more passengers for longer distances.
So what’s new with Boeing’s upgraded best-selling jetliner?
The MAX 10 is 5-and-a-half feet longer than the current 737 MAX 9 to make more space. The MAX 9 typically seats 178. The MAX 10 in contrast can seat up to 230 passengers.
Kevin Mcallister, Chief Executive of Boeing’s Jetliner Business says that “the MAX 10 will be the most efficient, single-aisle airplane in the skies.”
With the Airbus A321neo outselling the MAX 9 five-to-one, Boeing’s loyal customers like Korean Air pressed them for a larger variant of the MAX 9, so Boeing went back to the drawing board.
He also said that the new innovations give customers an “additional capacity with a 5 percent seat cost and trip cost advantage” over the Airbus A321neo, Boeing’s competition.
Already, customers have ordered more than 240 of the new MAX 10’s, with the first models coming into use in 2020.
Boeing’s launch of the MAX 10, which is the fifth addition to the 737 MAX family, takes place against the backdrop of surprisingly strong airline traffic driven by economic growth, but also a steep drop in the appetite for new planes following robust demand for the latest fuel-efficient models in recent years.
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have created a camera to capture ultrafast processes previously impossible to film.
The camera can film at a rate equivalent to 5 trillion images per second and capture processes in chemistry, physics, biology, and biomedicine that could guide future research and innovation.
“We have figured out a way so that we can record several images in one image, so we can acquire an entire video sequence in one shot,” co-creator Elias Kristensson told Reuters.
Present high-speed cameras capture images one by one. This new camera uses an algorithm to capture several coded images in one individual photograph and arrange them into a video sequence afterward.
The technology was developed by Kristensson and co-creator Andreas Ehn.
They have called the technology Frequency Recognition Algorithm for Multiple Exposures (FRAME).
But don’t expect to see FRAME technology in your local electronics store.
The camera is aimed at scientists studying rapid processes occurring in nature, many of which take place on a picosecond (one-trillionth of a second) and femtosecond (one-quadrillionth of a second) scale.
“We regard this mostly as a tool for scientists that want to be able to study ultrafast phenomena in their laboratories. We don’t think that it will be used by ordinary people in their homes,” said Kristensson.
The research pair are experts in combustion and said the new technology could help make next-generation car engines, gas turbines, and boilers cleaner and more fuel efficient.
The camera could get faster yet, said Kristensson.
“We’ve not actually reached the limit of how fast you can record things. Many facilities have faster lasers, such as attosecond lasers. That means they could actually reach frame rates about a thousand times faster,” he said.
The prototype has been taken on by a German company and could be available commercially within two years.
LONDON/WASHINGTON—The global WannaCry “ransomware” cyber attack spread more slowly on Monday with no major infections reported, as attention shifted to investment and government policy implications of lax cyber security.
Earlier on Monday, Chinese traffic police and schools reported they had been targeted as it rolled into Asia for the new work week, while authorities in Europe and the United States said they were trying to prevent hackers from spreading new versions of the virus.
Shares in firms that provide cyber security services jumped on the prospect of companies and governments spending more money on defenses, led by Israel’s Cyren Ltd. and U.S. firm FireEye Inc.
Tom Bossert, President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser, said people “should be thinking about this as an attack that for right now we have under control, but as an attack that represents an extremely serious threat,” speaking on ABC’s “Good Morning America” show.
The perpetrators of the attack are still not known. Bossert said that while U.S. officials had not ruled out the possibility that it was a “state action,” he said it appeared to be criminal in nature, given the ransom requests.
Some victims were ignoring official advice and paying the $300 ransom demanded by the cyber criminals to unlock their computers, which was due to double to $600 on Monday for computers hit by Friday’s first wave.
So far only a tiny number of the more than 200,000 estimated victims of the attack appeared to have paid, based on publicly available bitcoin accounts on the web, where victims have been instructed to pay.
The initial ransom demand was $300 per machine. Three days after becoming infected the demand doubles. Starting on Monday, the first victims began facing demands of $600 to unlock their machines.
This coming Friday, victims face being locked out of their computers permanently if they fail to pay the $600 ransom, said Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, a London-based private security company that investigates ransomware attacks.
Gary Olson (R) of GTop Group gives a demonstration of their Anti-Terrorism and Situational Awareness technology platform to attendees during the TechCrunch Disrupt event in Manhattan, in New York City, NY on May 15, 2017. (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)
As of 10 a.m. ET, the total value of funds paid into anonymous bitcoin wallets the hackers are using stood at just $55,169, from 209 payments, according to calculations made by Reuters using publicly available data.
Brian Lord, managing director of cyber and technology at cyber security firm PGI, said victims had told him “the customer service provided by the criminals is second-to-none,” with helpful advice on how to pay: “One customer said they actually forgot they were being robbed.”
Companies and governments spent the weekend upgrading software to limit the spread of the virus. Monday was the first big test for Asia, where offices had already mostly been closed for the weekend before the attack first arrived.
Renault-Nissan said output had returned to normal at nearly all its plants. PSA Group, Fiat Chrysler, Volkswagen, Daimler, Toyota and Honda said their plants were unaffected.
Paramedics carry a patient to an ambulance parked outside 10 Downing Street in London, Britain on May 15, 2017. (REUTERS/Toby Melville)
British media were hailing as a hero a 22-year-old computer security whiz who appeared to have helped stop the attack from spreading by discovering a “kill switch”—an internet address which halted the virus when activated.
The virus hit computers running older versions of Microsoft Corp software that had not been recently updated. Microsoft released patches last month and on Friday to fix a vulnerability that allowed the worm to spread across networks. The company’s shares were down about 1 percent on Monday, in a slightly higher broad market.
Infected computers appear to be largely out-of-date devices. Some have also been machines involved in manufacturing or hospital functions, difficult to patch without disrupting operations.
Political Topic
The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee is monitoring the attack and expects to receive a briefing in the coming days from the Trump administration, a panel aide said.
In a blog post on Sunday, Microsoft President Brad Smith confirmed what researchers had already widely concluded: the attack made use of a hacking tool built by the U.S. National Security Agency that had leaked online in April.
Hardwares used for Cybersecurity are displayed at the desk of Security Platform during the TechCrunch Disrupt event in Manhattan, in New York City, NY, on May 15, 2017. (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)
He poured fuel on a long-running debate over how government intelligence services should balance their desire to keep software flaws secret—in order to conduct espionage and cyber warfare—against sharing those flaws with technology companies to better secure the internet.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, noting the technology’s link to the U.S. spy service, said it should be “discussed immediately on a serious political level.”
“Once they’re let out of the lamp, genies of this kind, especially those created by intelligence services, can later do damage to their authors and creators,” he said.
A National Health Service (NHS) sign is seen in the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital, in front of the Houses of Parliament in London on June 7, 2011. (REUTERS/Toby Melville)
In Britain, where the virus first raised global alarm when it caused hospitals to divert ambulances on Friday, it gained traction as a political issue just weeks before a general election. The opposition Labour Party accused the Conservative government of leaving the National Health Service (NHS) vulnerable.
“The government’s response has been chaotic,” the British Labour Party’s health spokesman Jon Ashworth said. “If you’re not going to allow the NHS to invest in upgrading its IT, then you are going to leave hospitals wide open to this sort of attack.”
Britain’s NHS is the world’s fifth-largest employer after the U.S. and Chinese militaries, Wal-Mart Stores and McDonald’s. The government says that under a previous Labour administration the trusts that run local hospitals were given responsibility to manage their own computer systems.
Asked if the government had ignored warnings over the NHS being at risk from cyber attack, Prime Minister Theresa May told Sky News: “No. It was clear (that) warnings were given to hospital trusts.”
British health minister Jeremy Hunt said on Monday it was “encouraging” that a predicted second spike of attacks had not occurred, but the ransomware was a warning to public and private organizations.
Asia Impact
China appeared over the weekend to have been particularly vulnerable, raising worries about how well the world’s second-largest economy would cope. However, officials and security firms said the spread was starting to slow.
“The growth rate of infected institutions on Monday has slowed significantly compared to the previous two days,” said Chinese Internet security company Qihoo 360.
An official from Cybersecurity Administration China (CAC) told local media on Monday the ransomware had affected industry and government computer systems but the spread was slowing.
A screenshot shows a WannaCry ransomware demand, provided by cyber security firm Symantec, in Mountain View, Calif., on May 15, 2017. (Courtesy of Symantec/Handout via REUTERS)
Energy giant PetroChina said payment systems at some petrol stations were hit although it had restored most of the systems.
Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s National Police Agency reported two breaches of computers in the country on Sunday—one at a hospital and the other case involving a private person—but no loss of funds.
Conglomerate Hitachi Ltd. said the attack had affected its systems over the weekend, leaving them unable to receive and send emails or open attachments in some cases.
At Indonesia’s biggest cancer hospital, Dharmais Hospital in Jakarta, attacks affected scores of computers. By late morning, some people were still manually filling out forms, but 70 percent of systems were online.
India’s government said it received only a few reports of attacks and urged those hit not to pay any ransom. No major Indian corporations reported disrupted operations.
SAN FRANCISCO—Facebook Inc. will add 3,000 people over the next year to monitor reports of inappropriate material on the social media network and removing videos such as murders and suicides, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday.
Zuckerberg, the company’s co-founder, said in a Facebook post the workers will be in addition to the 4,500 people who already review posts that may violate its terms of service.
The hiring spree represents an acknowledgement by Facebook that, at least for now, it needs more than automated software to improve monitoring of broadcasts on Facebook Live, a service that has been marred since its launch last year by instances of people streaming violence.
Last week, a father in Thailand broadcast himself killing his daughter on Facebook Live, police said. After more than a day, and 370,000 views, Facebook removed the video. Other videos from places such as Chicago and Cleveland have also shocked viewers with their violence.
Zuckerberg said: “We’re working to make these videos easier to report so we can take the right action sooner—whether that’s responding quickly when someone needs help or taking a post down.”
Facebook is due to report quarterly revenue and earnings later Wednesday after markets close in New York.
ROME—A court blocked the use of smart phone apps for Uber cars in Italy on Friday, ruling that they constituted unfair competition.
The court said Uber could not use its Black, Lux, Suv, X , XL, Select and Van phone applications nor could it promote or advertise its services in Italy, a court document showed.
The court ruled in favour of a suit filed by Italy’s major traditional taxi associations.
Uber’s Italy unit said in a statement they were “shocked” by the decision and that they would appeal.
Apple Inc unveiled an updated version of its iPad tablet with a brighter screen on Tuesday, available to order from Friday and with a $329 starting price that is the lowest ever for a full-sized tablet from Apple.
Apple also said its smaller iPhone SE model will be available in 32 and 128 gigabyte (GB) versions, replacing the 16 GB and 64 GB models.
The hardware updates are incremental improvements that were announced without a major media event. Apple is widely expected to unveil an update to its flagship iPhone this fall that might have new features such as wireless charging, 3-D facial recognition and a curved display.
The new iPad model starts at 32 GB of storage and replaces the iPad Air 2. It will be slightly less expensive than the smaller iPad Mini 4, which starts at $399 for a 128 GB model.
Apple’s new iPad features a 9.7-inch screen and up to 10 hours of battery life. You can order it in 3 days. https://t.co/8A90hTuw10
Apple also announced a new app for creating videos and sharing them with friends on its iOS devices. The new feature, along with extra iMessage features released in recent years, pushes Apple closer to competing with the features in social networking apps like Snap Inc.
The new app, called Clips, lets users add captions and speech bubbles to videos and share them on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram or Apple’s own messaging app, where videos can be sent to contacts with a single tap. But unlike Snap or other messaging apps, users can add captions to videos using their voice.
PARIS—WikiLeaks will work with technology companies to help defend them against the Central Intelligence Agency’s hacking tools, founder Julian Assange said Thursday, an approach which sets up a potential conflict between Silicon Valley firms eager to protect their products and an agency stung by the radical transparency group’s disclosures.
In an online press conference, Assange acknowledged that some companies had asked for more details about the CIA cyberespionage toolkit whose existence he purportedly revealed in a massive leak published Tuesday.
“We have decided to work with them, to give them some exclusive access to some of the technical details we have, so that fixes can be pushed out,” Assange said. Once tech firms had patched their products, he said, he would release the full data of the hacking tools to the public.
The CIA has so far declined to comment directly on the authenticity of the leak, but in a statement issued Wednesday it suggested that the release had been damaging by equipping adversaries “with tools and information to do us harm.”
Assange began his online press conference with a dig at the agency for losing control of its cyberespionage arsenal, saying that all the data had been kept in one place.
“This is a historic act of devastating incompetence,” he said, adding that, “WikiLeaks discovered the material as a result of it being passed around.”
Assange said the technology was nearly impossible to keep under wraps—or under control.
“There’s absolutely nothing to stop a random CIA officer” or even a contractor from using the technology, Assange said. “The technology is designed to be unaccountable, untraceable; it’s designed to remove traces of its activity.”
Marketers are hoping to capitalize on biometric data that can reveal feelings we may not even know we have—or would rather not share.
The field of neuromarketing could be on the verge of a breakthrough with the latest smartphones and wearable tech. In the past, neuromarketers operated on the fringes of credibility, but that could change, along with the ethical issues the technology raises.
New Tech
Neuromarketing attempts to craft better marketing campaigns and products by measuring subconscious reactions.
That can involve conducting an electroencephalogram (EEG) or MRI brain scan on a test subject while exposing that person to a commercial or product, as was done in 2004 when volunteers took the Pepsi challenge inside a brain scanner. That test revealed how the brain responded differently once the drink was identified—neural evidence of brand recognition.
Neuromarketing is used by 10 percent of marketing buyers and accounts for 1 percent of global market research, according to a 2016 report by LCC, which predicts the market will double in five years.
We are already seeing the emergence of mobiles with in-built eye tracking and biometric measurement capability.
— Gemma Calvert, professor, Nanyang Business School
Neuromarketers claim their wares can develop marketing that appeals to subconscious emotions, but critics say it is riddled with spin and poor science.
Just as lie detectors pick up tiny changes in skin conductivity, devices such as brain scans and EEGs can catch hidden tells, such as blood flow in the brain or electrical activity on the scalp.
Neuromarketers say reaction tests can pick up subconscious biases. For example, a political campaign could use neuromarketing techniques to identify the key words and phrases that trigger positive reactions in potential voters.
(Shutterstock)
But neuromarketing now doesn’t need large machines in specific locations. It can be done online, remotely. Smartphones and watches already contain the tech for some neuromarketing studies.
Some companies claim they can identify values subconsciously associated with a brand just by observing test subjects using a computer. In one format, participants hit keys or touch pads in response to images or messages, their reaction time indicating “gut instincts.”
Online neuromarketing will be the industry standard for testing ad campaigns, prototypes, and packaging designs within five years, said Gemma Calvert, professor at Nanyang Business School in Singapore and a pioneer of neuromarketing.
“We are already seeing the emergence of mobiles with in-built eye tracking and biometric measurement capability,” she said in an email.
Games, apps, and ads will also be tweaked according to feedback from subconscious indicators, picked up in eye gaze, heart rate, and the response time in clicking the buttons, said Calvert.
In 2016, Apple bought Emotient, a startup that uses AI to analyze facial expressions and read emotions. Apple is also reportedly set to include a 3-D camera on the iPhone, which theoretically would be better able to read facial expressions.
But the potential uses for neuromarketing bring ethical concerns. In 2011, France responded to these by banning brain scans for marketing purposes.
A Question of Dignity
James Garvey, author of “The Persuaders: The Hidden Industry that Wants to Change Your Mind,” says he’s concerned our moral system hasn’t caught up with the implications of neuromarketing.
“There is a question of human dignity here. Are we treating people like people with hopes and desires? Or are we treating them as things that we can manipulate based on our understanding of how brains work?”
“Hundreds of years of research, and we are using it to sell sandwiches.”
Calvert and other proponents argue that neuromarketing allows consumers to get more of what they want by giving product developers better data.
Like some other neuroethicists, John Basl, assistant professor of philosophy at Northeastern University and an expert on neuroethics, isn’t particularly concerned with the current ethical threat. But he takes issue with the justification that neuromarketing would simply give us what we didn’t know we really wanted.
“Think about lying. Some lies, it seems, are wrong even when they promote well-being,” he said in an email. “One way to explain what is wrong with lying is that it subverts someone’s rational faculties, depriving them of important information that might influence how they decide to behave.”
The motives behind neuromarketing are also important, he said.
“Neuromarketing isn’t an attempt to reveal our desires and then fulfill them. It is an attempt to take advantage of certain mechanisms to shape or instill certain desires or behaviors.”
Some neuroscientists like Karen Rommelfanger, assistant professor of neuroscience and director of the neuroethics program at Emory University, say current practices simply aren’t developed enough to subvert free will.
The “neuro” label is a marketing device in and of itself, says Duncan Smith, managing director of neuromarketing company Mindlab International.
Even academics are seduced by brain scan images. Smith says studies show incorporating brain scan images in a research paper will increase perceptions of credibility.
Some marketing companies use the “neuro” label and brain scan images to look more credible, but many claims lack solid scientific backing, said Smith.
“A lot of the briefs we get asking for EEGs are actually PR dressed up as research,” he said.
Marketing companies want neuromarketing to help validate their own marketing products by proving their approach is superior, he said.
For those worried that neuromarketing could compromise consumers, there may be some comfort from Joe Devlin, head of experimental psychology at University College London.
He said that, in some limited areas, neuromarketing is based on sound research, but some neuromarketers don’t fully understand the limitations of the science they are using.
Science is far from unlocking the mysteries of the mind, Devlin said, dismissing concerns about manipulation.
NEW YORK—Usually people don’t notice the “cloud”—unless, that is, it turns into a massive storm. Which was the case Tuesday when Amazon’s huge cloud-computing service suffered a major outage.
Amazon Web Services, by far the world’s largest provider of internet-based computing services, suffered an unspecified breakdown in its eastern U.S. region starting about midday Tuesday. The result: unprecedented and widespread performance problems for thousands of websites and apps.
While few services went down completely, thousands, if not tens of thousands of companies had trouble with functions ranging from file sharing to webfeeds to loading any type of data stored on Amazon’s “simple storage service,” known as S3. Amazon services began returning around 4 p.m. EST, and an hour later the company noted on its service site that S3 was fully recovered and “operating normally.”
CONCENTRATING THE CLOUD
The breakdown shows the risks of depending heavily on a few big companies for cloud computing. Amazon’s service is significantly larger by revenue than any of its nearest rivals—Microsoft’s Azure, Google’s Cloud Platform and IBM, according to Forrester Research.
With so few large providers, any outage can have a disproportionate effect. But some analysts argue that the Amazon outage doesn’t prove there’s a problem with cloud computing—it just highlights how reliable the cloud normally is.
The outage, said Forrester analyst Dave Bartoletti, shouldn’t cause companies to assume “the cloud is dangerous.”
Amazon’s problems began when one S3 region based in Virginia began to experience what the company called “increased error rates.” In a statement, Amazon said as of 4 p.m. EST it was still experiencing errors that were “impacting various AWS services.”
“We are working hard at repairing S3, believe we understand root cause, and are working on implementing what we believe will remediate the issue,” the company said.
WHY S3 MATTERS
Amazon S3 stores files and data for companies on remote servers. Amazon started offering it in 2006, and it’s used for everything from building websites and apps to storing images, customer data and customer transactions.
“Anything you can think about storing in the most cost-effective way possible,” is how Rich Mogull, CEO of data security firm Securosis, puts it.
Since Amazon hasn’t said exactly what is happening yet, it’s hard to know just how serious the outage is. “We do know it’s bad,” Mogull said. “We just don’t know how bad.”
At S3 customers, the problem affected both “front-end” operations—meaning the websites and apps that users see—and back-end data processing that takes place out of sight. Some smaller online services, such as Trello, Scribd and IFTTT, appeared to be down for a while, although all have since recovered.
The corporate message service Slack, by contrast, stayed up, although it reported “degraded service ” for some features. Users reported that file sharing in particular appeared to freeze up.
The Associated Press’ own photos, webfeeds and other online services were also affected.
TECHNICAL KNOCKOUTAGE
Major cloud-computing outages don’t occur very often—perhaps every year or two—but they do happen. In 2015, Amazon’s DynamoDB service, a cloud-based database, had problems that affected companies like Netflix and Medium. But usually providers have workarounds that can get things working again quickly.
“What’s really surprising to me is that there’s no fallback—usually there is some sort of backup plan to move data over, and it will be made available within a few minutes,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.
AFTEREFFECTS
Forrester’s Bartoletti said the problems on Tuesday could lead to some Amazon customers storing their data on Amazon’s servers in more than one location, or even shifting to other providers.
“A lot more large companies could look at their application architecture and ask ‘how could we have insulated ourselves a little bit more,'” he said. But he added, “I don’t think it fundamentally changes how incredibly reliable the S3 service has been.”
WASHINGTON—Even before George Jetson entranced kids with his cartoon flying car, people dreamed of soaring above traffic congestion. Inventors and entrepreneurs have long tried and failed to make the dream a reality, but that may be changing.
Nearly a dozen companies around the globe, including some with deep pockets such as European aircraft maker Airbus, are competing to be the first to develop a new kind of aircraft that will enable commuters to glide above crowded roadways. A few of the aircraft under development are cars with wings that unfold for flight, but most aren’t cars at all. Typically they take off and land vertically like helicopters. Rather than a single, large main rotor, they have multiple small rotors. Each rotor is operated by a battery-powered electric motor instead of a conventional aircraft piston engine.
It’s no sure bet that flying-car dreams will turn into reality. There are many obstacles, including convincing regulators that the aircraft are safe, figuring out how to handle thousands of new low-flying aircraft over cities without collisions and developing batteries that will keep them aloft long enough to be useful.
But entrepreneurs are moving forward. They see a vast potential market for “air taxis” and personally owned small aircraft to transport people from the fringes of metropolitan areas to city centers as urban areas grow more congested and people spend more time stuck in traffic. They envision tens of thousands of one or two-person flying taxis delivering passengers to the rooftops of office buildings in city centers and other landing pads during rush hours.
“In as little as 10 years, products could be on the market that revolutionize urban travel for millions of people,” said Zach Lovering, the leader of Airbus’ project to develop an autonomous flying taxi called the Vahana. The name means the mount or vehicle of a Hindu deity.
This image provided by Joby Aviation shows the conceptual design of the Joby S2 Electric VTOL PAV aircraft. (Joby Aviation via AP)
Uber released a 98-page report in October making the business case for air taxis, which the company sees as the future of on-demand transportation. Uber doesn’t have any plans to develop a flying car itself, but the online transportation network is advising several companies that have aircraft in the works.
“The role we want to play is as a catalyst for the entire industry,” said Nikhil Goel, an Uber project manager for advanced programs.
Some of the aircraft are drones that will be preprogrammed for each flight and monitored or operated from the ground or a command center. Others are designed for human pilots.
It’s unclear yet how much the aircraft will cost, although prices are likely to vary significantly. Some of the aircraft are designed to be individually owned, while others are envisioned more for commercial use. Designers hope that if demand is high, prices can be kept affordable through economies of mass production.
Several recent developments could make these aircraft possible. Advances in computing power mean the rotors on multi-copter drones can be adjusted many times per second, making the aircraft easy to control. Drones have also benefited from advances in battery and electric motor technology. Some companies, like Chinese dronemaker EHang, are scaling-up drones so that they can carry people.
Another aircraft under development, Santa Cruz, California-based Joby Aviation’s S2, looks more like a conventional plane except that there are 12 tiltrotors spread along the wings and tail. And some, like the Vahana, a cockpit mounted on a sled and flanked by propellers in front and back, don’t really look like any aircraft in the skies today.
“In terms of what you can make fly in a reliable manner, the solution speed gateway that (computer) chips have gone through recently have literally opened the door to a whole new world of flying machine possibilities,” said Charles Eastlake, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University professor emeritus of aerospace engineering.
But he also cautioned: “My best engineering guess is that people actually using autonomous air taxis in the next 10 or 15 years is possible, but definitely not certain. The challenges are big.”
Key for many of the designs will be the development of longer-lasting lightweight batteries. Currently available batteries could probably keep an air taxi aloft about 15 to 30 minutes before it would have to land, experts said. Depending on how fast the aircraft flies, that probably isn’t quite enough to transport passengers between nearby cities or across metropolitan areas, experts said.
This image provided by Joby Aviation shows the conceptual design of the Joby S2 Electric VTOL PAV aircraft. (Joby Aviation via AP)
Another hurdle will be winning Federal Aviation Administration certification for any radical new kind of aircraft when approval of even small changes in aviation technology can take years.
The FAA said in a statement that it is taking a “flexible, open-minded, and risk-based approach” to flying cars. FAA officials have discussed with several manufacturers the certification of aircraft that will be flown with a pilot in the beginning, and later converted to an autonomous passenger aircraft.
While further research is needed to ensure that autonomous aircraft are safe, “we believe automation technology already being prototyped in low-risk unmanned aircraft missions, when fully mature, could have a positive effect” on aviation safety,” the agency said.
Reducing noise is another challenge since air taxis will be taking off and landing in densely populated areas. So is creating enough landing pads to handle lots of aircraft at the same time. A new air traffic control system would also likely be needed.
“It’s pretty clear that the existing air traffic control system won’t scale to the kind of density at low altitudes that people are talking about,” said John Hansman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who chairs the FAA’s research and engineering advisory committee.
This artist rendering provided by Airbus shows a vehicle in their flying car project, Vahana. (Airbus via AP)
NASA is developing an air traffic control system for small drones that perhaps could be expanded to include flying cars.
“There’s no question we can build the vehicle,” Hansman said. “The big challenge is whether we can build a vehicle that would be allowed to operate in the places where people want to use it.”
Edward Snowden’s GCHQ and NSA leaks in 2013 prompted people to think differently about their personal privacy. It was revealed that telephone recordings, emails, and instant messages were being collected en masse.
Surveillance in the digital age is unsettling, but privacy advocates are increasingly frustrated that many people seem not to care.
“It’s a hard sell to people to say, ‘care about what you do on the Internet’,” admitted tech entrepreneur Alex Kontos. “But it’s good to have freedom on the Internet.”
The 22-year-old is developing an alternative web browser called Aegis that focuses on the user’s online privacy. He says he’s not looking to “re-invent the wheel” but is ardent about providing a free and open web, particularly in an era where the end user often becomes the product. To protect user privacy, he won’t be tracking data and there will be no ads.
It’s release is set to be this December, particularly timely – though unintentionally so – with the UK Parliament passing the Investigatory Powers Bill, also known as the Snoopers’ Charter, on November 16th. The Bill will come into effect after receiving Royal Assent.
The Bill legalises a range of surveillance tools that give the government the ability to intercept millions of UK citizens’ communications. It was passed despite criticism from privacy advocates and major technology companies, including Apple.
If even one person uses it and it makes a difference then I couldn’t ask for more
— Alex Kontos
Kontos said all of the records for people using the Aegis browser, which encrypts traffic, would be “garbled information”, “nonsensical”, and of no use.
But one of the requirements of the new Bill is for Internet companies to log every user’s web browsing history for a year. Several public agencies can access this information, in some cases without a warrant.
“I completely disagree with what’s been passed,” Kontos said. “It’s a bit of a bad situation. I’ll try and fight it if I can, but I’m just one person.”
Aegis is also designed for people under repressive regimes like China and Iran, so journalists, campaigners, and activists can maintain their privacy online without fear of reprimand from the state.
Alex Kontos expects his new browser to be released in December, 2016 (Si Gross/Epoch Times)
It’s set to run on Tor, which is a popular way to protect online anonymity but is known to be slow. To make things faster, Kontos is planning to set up a private network modelled on Tor, with servers hosted in countries like Iceland and the Netherlands, where he says there won’t be the risk of censorship.
“If even one person uses it and it makes a difference then I couldn’t ask for more. Hopefully I’m not trying to fill in shoes too big because I’m just one person and I don’t want to have my plate too full,” he said.
He sometimes still feels daunted by the popularity of the Waterfox web browser that has around 6 million downloads, and which he coded at the age of 16 purely because he wanted a faster Internet browser.
Born in Cyprus to a Cypriot father and Romanian mother, his interest in computers was sparked by his father, a programmer. He remembers sitting in front of a BBC Micro with his father at age 10.
At 20, he worked on developing a charitable search engine, where half of the ad revenue from searches would be split with charities. He said it “crashed and burnt in typical start up fashion” but has taken it as good learning experience for his current project.
He’s now put his heart into building an indie web browser that can help protect people’s privacy.
“I figured I’ll put everything I can behind working and doing something good,” he said. “I’m stressed most of the time, but it’s a good kind of stress.”
NEW YORK—John McAfee, who created the world’s first antivirus computer program, VirusScan, in 1987, and became a news sensation in 2012 when he was on the run from the law in Belize, gives a sobering view of how we are allowing technology to slowly erode our privacy, and with it, our basic freedoms.
“People are missing the fundamental truth of privacy,” said the McAfee Associates founder, in an interview with Epoch Times. “Governments, phone companies, and Google would like us to believe that if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear. That is an extraordinarily naive understanding of privacy.”
When you go to the grocery store and meet a new clerk, do you tell that clerk all the details of what you did the night before? asks McAfee. What about your bank problems? The mortgage on your house?
When you leave the store, maybe you bump into an acquaintance, and with this person, you make small talk about how their family is doing. But you don’t divulge to this person the level of information you would to a close friend, he points out.
“We have a social structure and order and process for such interactions, and they involve very limited choices,” McAfee said.
We have different levels of trust for each person we encounter, and the amount of personal information we divulge is based on this level of trust. Privacy, he said, is built by the “constant decisions and actions that each of us makes thousands of times per day.”
Privacy is complex. It’s not as simple as ‘I’ve got nothing to hide therefore, I’ve got nothing to fear.’ If everyone knew everything about everyone else, there would be riots in the streets.
McAfee views privacy as “the glue that holds our society together.” There’s the understanding that if we all divulged every detail about ourselves—our deeds both good and bad, all of our political views, all of our thoughts and opinions—it wouldn’t be our similarities that stick out anymore, but rather our differences.
The human race tends to be as judgmental as it is loving, he said. If people knew the misdeeds, betrayals, and bad thoughts of everyone around them, it could lead to riots in the street.
“It is the negative qualities that require privacy in order to have a smoothly functioning society,” McAfee said.
The idea that sharing information and ideas online would somehow help people to better understand each other has been proven false by the divisiveness now on display. “We just had election riots in the streets. Does any of that dialogue matter? No.”
For all that people can exchange ideas online, the level of debate is far from functional. McAfee believes people are judgmental and fixed in their opinions. “If I like Trump, then there is nothing that you will tell me about Hillary Clinton that will change my mind.”
He said reality differs from the optimistic view that sharing information about ourselves online can bridge differences. “All of these pie-in-the-sky hopes for technology, I don’t think will be achieved.”
As people divulge their deeper ideas, people with different views are often left feeling offended. The divulging of information, in this case, is leading to calls for the online censorship of rival viewpoints and information. Twitter’s recent purge of alt-right political commentators could be seen as a worrying precursor.
The Information Dictatorship
The idea of a single authority having control over information, the ability to discredit ideas and opinions, and the ability to censor at will, brings prospects that McAfee believes we as a society should find deeply concerning.
We’re already seeing this, as major technology hubs like Facebook and Google become both the storehouses of our personal information and the choke points of information we are able to receive.
“Google has prohibited power, has unconscionable power,” he said.
Many people take Google search results as fact, but overlook the sources of that information, and how Google selects which to put at the top of the list and which to bury. The next dictator, McAfee said, “will not be a political, head-of-state dictator.”
“It will be,” he said, “the dictator of information.
“What I choose for you to believe, understand, know, or to fight for is the ultimate power.
“Who has that vault of power? Right now, it is Google.”
In the endless barrage of information, the challenge becomes knowing what is fact and what is fiction.
“The fake and the real cannot be distinguished if one person controls the delivery of the truth.”
Any information filtered by that person, he said, is going to be colored by their own prejudices and judgments, no matter how kind the person may be.
Big Brother Through Big Data
People also underestimate the significance of the data they generate, said McAfee. Beyond the bits and bytes stored on smartphones, people leave a wealth of information behind with every website they visit and every purchase they make.
Everything from Facebook comments to phone calls leaves data to be harvested.
“It’s every interaction of your life in the electronic world,” McAfee said.
He believes the rapid erosion of privacy, and the corporate collection of our personal data, is threatening society in a fundamental way.
“I see this headed in a direction that will cause a major collapse of the social order,” he said.
Our personal data is being traded, used, and monitored. Businesses like Google are using it to serve us advertisements. Companies are using it to understand our behaviors and personal interests. Governments are using it to watch for threats, or to prosecute us if we step out of line.
What I said 10 years ago is happening. What I said last year, it’s happening. But it doesn’t make me less of a lunatic.
McAfee noted that most great military leaders were great because they could predict the actions of their enemies. Now we are divulging data that can be used against us, in just the same way, right down to our most basic activities, interests, opinions, and beliefs.
“The goal of every dictator has not been absolute power,” he said, “It has been absolute knowledge of the populous, because a dictator who knows everything about you—where you are, who you’re with, what you’re saying—that man will never be unseated. This has been the search of all dictatorships since Adolf Hitler.
“This is George Orwell’s ‘1984,’ where you re-write history every day. This is the horror.”
As we enter a new the world of big data and the loss of privacy, there exists a power of dictatorship unprecedented in human history, an ability for a government to know the intricate details of its citizens, and shape their reality according to its machinations.
“This is that combination of what the dictator knows about the individual, and what the dictator allows the individual to know about his or her reality,” he said.
“We are standing on the edge of a cliff, teetering.”
PARIS—A Samsung phone user in France says her Galaxy J5 smartphone caught fire and exploded on Sunday. The model is different from the Galaxy Note 7 that has been recalled worldwide.
Lamya Bouyirdane told The Associated Press on Monday that she noticed the phone was very hot after she asked her four-year-old son to pass it over during a family gathering at her home. She said she threw the phone away when she realized it had “swollen up” and smoke was coming out.
“I panicked when I saw the smoke and I had the reflex to throw it away,” said Bouyirdane, a mother of three in the southwestern French city of Pau.
The phone then caught fire and the back blew off. Her partner quickly extinguished it.
Bouyirdane said she bought the phone new last June on a website offering discounts.
The South Korean company recently recalled millions of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones globally because of a problem that caused the batteries to overheat and catch fire.
William Stofega, a mobile analyst for IDC, said the incident in France was most likely an isolated one, noting that the phone has been on the market for several months now and this is the first report of a battery fire that he’s aware of.
“These reports tend to cluster,” he said.
He added that problems involving lithium-ion batteries used in not just smartphones, but also laptop computers, have been around for years and there’s no easy fix for them. Manufacturing defects or even a small amount of damage can cause a short circuit, resulting in an overheated battery and potentially a fire.
Samsung did not immediately respond to an email from the AP seeking comments following the latest incident.
Nearly 3 million Samsung washing machines are being recalled in the U.S. following multiple injuries—including a broken jaw—due to “excessive vibration.”
Samsung is the South Korean company that last month was forced to recall millions of its of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones after batteries inside began to overheat and catch fire.
Safety officials cited 733 reports of malfunctioning, top-loading washing machines and nine injuries, including the broken jaw and an injured shoulder.
The recall Friday affects 34 models of washing machines manufactured between 2011 and this year. Samsung is offering free repairs, a rebate on the cost of a new machine or a full refund for machines purchased in the last 30 days.
