Sky Views: Sovereignty? If it’s not technological, it won’t count – Sky News

No-one can say the topic of sovereignty hasn't been debated in the UK. It has been discussed, and analysed, and argued - oh the arguments - until the very mention of the word sends shivers down the spine.

But, arguably, the entire debate has been conducted on the wrong terms, framed as it has been by eighteenth-century concepts of nationalism and 19th century ideas of free trade.

It's told us very little about what sovereignty will mean in the 21st century - an era many powerful people believe will be defined by the challenge of achieving "technological sovereignty".

The idea that modern sovereignty requires technological autonomy has long been promoted by autocrats such as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, who earlier this month passed a wide-ranging "sovereign internet" law giving officials extensive powers to restrict traffic on the Russian web.

Now, democratic leaders are beginning to follow their lead.

Last week, Emmanuel Macron gave an interview to The Economist. The headline was the French president's warning that, as he put it, we are witnessing "the brain death of NATO".

What got less coverage was his proposed response: sweeping European technological sovereignty for "artificial intelligence, data, digital technology and 5G, all forms of technology which are both civilian and military".

Making this happen would involve nothing less than a complete reinvention of the way European countries approach technology. No longer would they buy equipment and software from abroad, creating long-lasting dependencies on the two tech superpowers, America and China.

No longer would citizens allow Silicon Valley firms to, as Mr Macron put it, decide "what shapes your life, from your relationship with your girlfriend, to managing your children's daily lives and your accounts, etc..."

Instead, in his vision, European nations should build and rely on their own technology - not because it is better, but because it is European.

Making this plan a reality will be difficult. European countries are divided on a number of tricky tech questions, most notably 5G infrastructure, which Mr Macron wants to be built with kit from European manufacturers Ericsson and Nokia, rather than Chinese Huawei.

But this week Mr Macron received the backing of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, who urged the EU to seize control of data from Silicon Valley tech giants, saying the bloc should claim "digital sovereignty" from the US.

The idea that modern sovereignty requires technological autonomy has long been promoted by autocrats such as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin...Now, democratic leaders are beginning to follow their lead. Rowland Manthorpe

"So many companies have just outsourced all their data to US companies," Mrs Merkel told German business leaders, calling for an "EU cloud" to be built so data could remain on the continent.

That may sound unlikely right now, but with China and the US both using technological superiority to pursue greater power politics it's far from impossible. The need is strong, even if the will is weak.

What does this mean for the UK, as it stumbles towards Brexit? Perhaps the fullest analysis of this question has been conducted by Ian Hogarth, co-founder of concert alert service Songkick.

In an essay published in 2018, he predicted that an accelerated arms race in machine learning would drive the emergence of "a new kind of geopolitics" akin to the one created by the invention of nuclear weapons in the 20th century.

Assessing the UK's readiness for this "AI nationalism", he found it deeply lacking, as large swathes of the nation's talent and data had been sold to foreign countries.

There are many examples, but the most obvious is DeepMind, the world's leading AI lab. Built in the UK, but owned and operated by Google's umbrella organisation, Alphabet.

"Is there a case to be made for the UK to reverse this acquisition and buy DeepMind out of Google and reinstate it as some kind of independent entity?" Mr Hogarth asked.

In a world of technological sovereignty, there almost certainly is, but, at present, none of our politicians are even contemplating the question.

It is not pleasant to contemplate the rise of technologically-fuelled nationalism. But when a future becomes increasingly inevitable, it's better to face it directly.

We - the people who are, at least in theory, the source and purpose of all this sovereignty - have a month left of this election campaign to make that happen.

Previously on Sky Views: Beth Rigby - This election is a choice between Brexit identity and party allegiance

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Sky Views: Sovereignty? If it's not technological, it won't count - Sky News

Business Email protection startup Inky Technology closed a $6M Series A funding round – Technical.ly

College Park, Maryland-based Inky Technology has closed on a $6 million Series A funding round. This is the companys second Series A raise, following its June 2018 raise worth $5.6 million.

Dave Baggett, CEO at Inky, said in a press release that the fresh funding will go toward market expansion.

Launched a few years ago, Inky makes cloud-based email protection software. This latest funding round was led by ClearSky Security with participation from Gula Tech Adventures.

In the 18 months since our foundational investment in INKY, the company has racked up numerous key commercial wins and has improved the intelligence of the core INKY Phish Fence product well beyond what incumbent vendors are capable of, Peter Kuper, managing director of Clear Sky Security, said in a statement. Were thrilled to support Inky at this exciting inflection point for the company.

Inky has a team of 19 employees working out of its College Park office. In October 2018, the company released its flagship anti-phishing product, INKY Phish Fence, which detects phishing attacks using computer vision, artificial intelligence and machine learning. The software is designed to protect enterprises from widespread phishing, spear phishing and extortion attacks.

As a result of the funding transaction, Gula Tech Adventures founder Ron Gula will join Inkys board of advisors.

As an early investor in INKY and team, Ive seen the real benefits of the companys computer vision technology in preventing and catching phishing attacks before they are able to execute ahead of legacy anti-phishing technologies on the market today, Gula said.

This is Gulas second investment this week, following his firms investment in Cybrary. He also serves on Cybrarys board of advisors.

Inky currently has five open positions listed on its website, one of those being a director of partners. A media rep from the company shared with Technical.ly that Inky specifically has plans to expand its sales and customer service team following this funding raise.

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Business Email protection startup Inky Technology closed a $6M Series A funding round - Technical.ly

Dell Technologies on democratising 5G and the future of quantum computing – ZDNet

Michael Dell said he would like to think his company has been a force for good in terms of democratising access to technology and making it more available to everyone.

Speaking with media this week during the Dell Technologies Summit in Austin, the CEO and his president and CTO of products and operations John Roese, said it's important that tech isn't reserved for the elite.

"The lever that you can pull -- it has always worked -- is broad availability to the technology and so something like 5G, our aspiration, we're doing a lot of work right now. Michael specifically, we're trying to basically bend the curve on the economics of 5G by aggressively moving towards virtualisation and simplification," Roese added.

"The net result of that is If we can drive the economic model so that we can flatten that, make it less of a premium product for only the elite, but make it available to everybody -- that's obviously good for us and good for the industry."

According to Roese, it also opens up opportunities for people to change the education cycle.

"Imagine, you know, underdeveloped environments, or even populations that are literally being able to do holographic or AR-based experiences at a cost-effective level -- it changes the curve," he said.

"I was on the board when they got One Laptop per Child in the 2000s, and the whole fact of making children literate, who couldn't even read and write with a piece of technology was because we drove the cost of compute way down, we made it generally available."

Roese said Dell Technologies' goal is not to create technology for five people, in a unit volume of three, rather it's to make it available everywhere.

"And the way that we do it is standardisation, basically making it easy to consume, driving the cost out of it and making it accessible," he said "That lever spawns the innovation cycle that can actually change things like poverty, change literacy rates, and we have good evidence that when that happens, that's exactly what occurs.

"And this next cycle, trust me, we have no other goal, than broad adoption of these technologies."

When asked during a media session what Dell Technologies was doing in the quantum computing space, Dell said "it could go either way".

"We believe the physics are sound, and something will happen in the quantum world that will be a disruption," Roese said, clarifying the company's position. "There are three conditions that have to be true before any kind of adoption."

The first, he said, is an industry-wide agreement on a quantum computing architecture, which is yet to happen with sufficient scale; the second is that quantum computing has to be made to work in the real world.

"We have huge activity going on in the industry around trapped ions, trapped charged particles, trapped photons, that work has not been done -- it is too esoteric to do," he continued.

The third is the development of a software framework and how quantum will be experienced.

"The good news is all three of those are happening, we're working with most of those companies -- I just did a bit of a tour a couple of weeks ago with most of the quantum startups in the world and they are basically on a journey that over the next, let's say five years, we will start to see incremental breakthroughs. They will be very, very narrow -- kind of like the equivalent of like vacuum tube era of technology is what's happening now," Roese said.

See also: Australia's ambitious plan to win the quantum race

Roese pointed to Google's recent announcement, and said the only thing the search giant's "breakthrough" did was create a random number generator, which is something that's never been achieved in a classical computer.

"Now it's not usable for anything yet, but those kind of breakthroughs will happen, but it will happen over a long cycle," he said.

"We are observing, we are engaged, we think this will manifest as an accelerator in the cloud that you'll do certain mathematical functions -- it will not replace your generalised compute infrastructure, probably ever, but it will be interesting over time.

"We're watching it closely, we're involved in it, but if you're worried about changing your entire IT architecture and your strategy and your investment portfolio because of quantum -- don't do that. we will let you know -- my commitment to Michael is I'll give him two to three years notice before he has to decide to do R&D in this space and that's not happening."

Asha Barbaschow travelled to Dell Technologies Summit as a guest of Dell Technologies.

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Dell Technologies on democratising 5G and the future of quantum computing - ZDNet

LOTI launches dashboard that maps technology resources of local authorities – ComputerWeekly.com

The London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) has launched a report and interactive dashboard that maps technologies, contracts and skills across boroughs in the capital.

The platform, dubbed City Tools: London, was developed in partnership with Bloomberg Associates, a pro-bono municipal consulting service. It aims to make information around technology resources transparent and easily accessible, so that boroughs can identify new opportunities to collaborate and improve their IT strategies and delivery.

A research area of the platform outlines key findings and trends, describes case studies and provides recommendations for local, municipal and national government.

The research, carried out by Omid Shiraji, former CIO at Camden Council, is based on Bloomberg Associates Digital City Tools report, launched in 2018, which details how city governments around the world use technology to address and solve urban challenges and drive progress. It is intended as a starting point to enable the identification of opportunities, cooperation between boroughs and cost savings.

The dashboard, which will become a real-time resource, hosted and maintained by LOTI, has mapped 809 IT systems and their respective contracts, as well as skills levels for each borough as a means to drive peer training opportunities.

Boroughs will now have much richer information about how their technology compares to their peers, making it easier to share their knowledge and expertise with each other, and look for areas where they can work together, said LOTI director Eddie Copeland.

LOTI was launched in June 2019, with boroughs across the capital pledging to collaborate on speeding up technology-led advances underpinning the delivery of local service provision.

Core areas of work at the centre include skills, leadership and data sharing. The member boroughs will run a programme of projects to demonstrate where the leading edge of development might be, with LOTI acting as a facilitator.

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LOTI launches dashboard that maps technology resources of local authorities - ComputerWeekly.com

Kids and technology: How Maize school strikes the balance – KSN-TV

MAIZE, Kan. (KSNW) A new study concluded excess screen time in young children without interaction with an adult, leads to less developed brains.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says no baby under 18 months old should have access to screen time (with the exception of video chatting friends or family), and children three to five years old can benefit from limited, high-quality screen time.

Todays children are growing up with technology, leading educators to use it in limited, smart ways.

We work hard to use technology in a way that its intentional, its planned its in short little bits. When a teacher is using technology, theyre interacting with the kids, Maize Early Childhood Center principal June Rempel said.

In a classroom on Wednesday, Emily Lucille Millspaughs pre-Kindergarten class demonstrated the dip and flip, a skill that taught the three and four-year-olds how to put on their own coat by placing it on the ground and slipping one arm in before flipping it over their bodies and getting it into place.

Millspaughs classroom activities center around sensory involvement, motor skills and face-to-face time with peers.

They learned the dip and flip from a video.

Really what were trying to do is teach them to interact with each other, teach them to interact with other people so our technology is used more as an accent piece to enhance the information were presenting, Millspaugh said.

Millspaughs key takeaway from the recent study was the importance of the parental interaction piece along with using technology.

Recommended ways to foster brain development beyond screens, even so-called educational programming, include any singing, rhyming, reading, any kind of creativity or time outdoors.

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Kids and technology: How Maize school strikes the balance - KSN-TV

NHL Seattle using virtual chat technology to handle influx of season ticket and other questions – Seattle Times

Hockey fans clamoring for information about NHL Seattle season tickets are getting some help of the digital kind.

The team has partnered with Satisfi Labs, a leading artificial intelligence knowledge management platform, to answer questions related to upcoming seat selection on general season tickets expected next year. While the virtual assistant chatbot designed by the company isnt answering the biggest question of all how much those seats will cost it offers information on the selection process timeline, how depositors will be contacted and what payment plans are available.

A platform like ours is perfect at tackling anything where theres a lot of customer engagement and (needed) education, said Bill Bailey, chief revenue officer for New York-based Satisfi, which began working a year ago with the Seahawks and also counts the Seattle Aquarium and Woodland Park Zoo as clients. So, right now theyre talking about how to choose their seats or engage their deposit, or begin their journey from just deposits to more engagement with the team.

The team first collected more than 32,000 deposits of $500 and $1,000 from fans back on March 1, 2018 and began seat selection last month for roughly 2,100 club-level tickets not previously set aside for sponsors or suite holders.

Two weeks ago, the club began hosting about 40 depositors per day inside their season-ticket preview center where they could choose seats based on availability and location. Those attending the sessions say the team requested they pay an additional $1,000 per seat in deposit money to maintain their spot on the priority list and told them payment for the 2021-22 season is to begin next April.

Club season tickets require a minimum three-year commitment ranging from $12,540 to $15,620 for the first season with slight increases the next two. The team has told depositors they can pay in full or choose interest-free quarterly and monthly plans broken out equally from April 1, 2020 until September 2021.

Theyve also been told they must use a team-partnered secondary-market ticketing platform to resell their seats.

The new Satisfi software doesnt go into as much detail yet as the team has yet to release pricing on general season tickets other than saying some will start as low as $2,200 per season. But clicking a Chat with Us button on the NHL Seattle website takes users to the virtual assistant run by Satisfy and provides more basic information: Like how general season-ticket selection should begin by spring of 2020 which is in line with the April 2020 date some depositors reported being told while attending club-selection appointments.

Other questions answered include the method of payment, whether fans will be required to visit the preview center before buying seats and whether friends with two different priority numbers can pick seats that are together.

Bailey said the company typically programs about 150 answers to questions within the software provided its nationwide stable of clients and that multiple subtopic answers can be added as well. The software helps teams with time and workload, given it can reply to multiple questions at once without employees needing to get on the phone or send emails to deliver the same answers multiple times per day.

NHL Seattle senior vice president (digital and fan experience) Todd Humphrey said fans are also more likely to use the virtual assistant than pick up the phone or send an email to the team. The virtual assistant went live on NHL Seattles site in late September, with ticketing information added last month.

Satisfi chat sessions are 35 times the number of emails received, and 17 times the phone calls, which shows that Seattle fans are 17 times more likely to chat with us using Satisfy than to pick up the phone and call, Humphrey said. And, that number is increasing week-by-week.

Bailey said his companys metrics increasingly show fans prefer chatting with a computer algorithm than an actual human.

Whats changing is, fans, they want to engage the way they want to engage, Bailey said. You cant push them anymore with technology. If I want to chat with you at 2 a.m., then I need to be able to find the answer. So, we have a lot of connections into that answer.

Going forward, NHL Seattle will expand the technology to platforms beyond its website and engage on additional topics besides mostly ticketing. And for traditionalists worried about computers taking over everything, take heart: The biggest fan question beyond season ticket cost what the new teams name will be is still almost certainly to be answered by humans next January ahead of any bots leaking the news.

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NHL Seattle using virtual chat technology to handle influx of season ticket and other questions - Seattle Times

United Way Vision Screening with New Technology – PAHomePage.com

WILKES-BARRE, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU-TV) The Wilkes-Barre Area School District is teaming up with the United Way of Wyoming Valley with a new program for students.

The program is called, See to Succeed, and it kicked off Thursday at Heights-Murray Elementary School. It is designed to remove barriers that could keep students from receiving proper eye care.

Last year, of the 7,300 kids that are in Wilkes-Barre Area School District, about 662 kids were found to have a vision correction need. What we learned is that only 16 percent of those kids actually got the glasses that they needed. So, 84 percent of kids (550 kids) did not get those glasses, says Bill Jones, President/CEO United Way of Wyoming Valley.

The device, which is a vision spot screener, replaces the old way of doing a vision test with new and improved technology that can get you results within seconds.

Julian Velez, a kindergartner, says, I looked at that little circle/camera-thingy and got my eyes checked.

We can change directions in [the letters on an eye chart] and ask them what direction is the E, but then, instead of that which takes minutes, I can grab the spot vision and say look at the lights and its done within probably less than a second at most, once it starts to evaluate the measurement, says school nurse Tracey Glynn-Roulinavage.

The eye screening will determine whether a student has astigmatism, a lazy eye, or if they are near-sighted or far-sighted. It then advises whether an eye doctor should be seen for further examinations. School principal, Melissa Myers, says she is honored to have this technology at her school.

A child may have difficulty seeing the board, maybe squinting, and then, in turn, starts to fidget around in their seat and get distracted. They cant focus because ultimately they are not able to see, says Myers.

Jones told Eyewitness News that while improper vision amongst students is a serious problem in schools, it is a solvable problem they hope to fix.

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United Way Vision Screening with New Technology - PAHomePage.com

Chinese Insider Pleads Guilty to Theft of Billion Dollar US Technology – ClearanceJobs

When we learned of Chinese insider Hongjin Tans $1 billion theft of trade secrets from the Phillips 66 Research Center in Bartlesville, OK, we shared the news and waited to learn more. This week, the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Tans guilty plea.

In Tans plea, he acknowledged his guilt to three Title 18 criminal code violations:

Tan copied files he had access to as a scientist with Phillips. In his plea, he acknowledged that he knew what he was taking was a protected trade secret to which he had no claim of ownership. Tan acknowledged that he intended to use the trade secrets for economic benefit, and he transmitted the trade secret outside of approved channels to those without a need to know or authorization.

Tan explained in his plea agreement, As part of my work on flow batteries, the copying and downloading of research and development materials was not required for my work or authorized by Company A (Phillips) policy. In fact, the copying and downloading was contrary to Company A policy of which I had been made aware and agreed to follow. With this statement he acknowledged that the trade secret had been protected by Phillips, and that he knowing stole it.

He accomplished the theft, undetected, in the most simple fashion possible.

On December 11th I used a thumb drive to copy certain Company A files, including files identified in the charging documents, Tan described. On December 12, I provided Company A with notice of my resignation. Later that dayI contacted my manager to discuss a personal thumb drive I had in my possession containing intellectual property belonging to Company A.

He then admitted to having copied those files to a personal hard drive at his residence.

Tans lawyers fought the admissibility of the information concerning Tans possession of trade secrets uncovered during a warranted search. They lost their appeal, and the smoking gun of Tans retention of trade secrets was cemented.

In the initial review of this case we detailed how the criminal complaint (December 2018) placed the value of the trade secrets at greater than $1 billion, believed to be associated with large-scale battery technology.

Initially, it appeared the companys insider threat program was hard at work and resulting in dividends the discovery of Tans actions. This may have been an overstatement, as we learned from the court documents and plea agreement that Tans accessing information to which he had no need-to-know was not discovered when it occurred, nor probably would have been discovered until a future date in time when Phillips was scratching its head how China had leapfrogged in the race for more efficient large-scale battery technology.

Tan essentially waved an amber banner of warning when he approached his manager and announced that he was departing. and that he had plans to return to China, along with a thumb drive in his possession. He was terminated then, and not allowed to continue to his proffered last day. It was only then that Phillips dug into Tans activities and discovered his unauthorized access the prior day. They then contacted the FBI.

Had Tan simply left, Phillips would still be chasing their technology into China.

Insider threat programs need to be proactive in detecting the unscrupulous behavior of their employees who choose to break trust. In this case, an astute and aware manager saved Phillips billions of dollars an insider program win, but one which seems more accidental than earned.

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Chinese Insider Pleads Guilty to Theft of Billion Dollar US Technology - ClearanceJobs

Bernstein: MLB Needs Technology To Combat Cheating – 670 The Score

(670 The Score)Whenever the next story pops about an MLB team stealing opposing signs, the reaction runs the predictable gamut from pearl-clutching outrage to shrugs ofwhaddaya-gonna-do.

But this time around feels a bit different, considering the team involved and the video and audio evidence right in front of our faces.It might be enough to move Major League Baseball at something other than its usual glacial pace to attempt to curtail the practice of using video to see what pitch the catcher calls for and then relaying the information to the hitter in the box.

Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich did the reporting for The Athletic, getting pitcher Mike Fiers on the record and threeother MLB sources to confirmanonymouslythat the Houston Astros regularly stole the signals with a camera in center field in 2017and would bang a trash can in the dugout tunnel to alert the batter to something other than a fastball.Twitter sleuths took it from there, isolating specific and obvious moments that synced upperfectly and making it available for all of us to see.

The Astros are fun to dunk ontoo, especially after their behavior throughout the ugly Brandon Taubman locker room incident and their ensuing series of public pratfalls in handling it.Inside the industry, that front office has made few friends as well, with executives around the league resenting Houston'slevel of open self-congratulation.But what's clear from the initial response is that the Astros' hubris was just enough to get them caught at it, and other offenders are hard at work doing all of that and more, abetted by apps and algorithms decoding the sequencing in real time.

So what to do?

MLB can't really punish it, not without true investigative power to figure some fair way of assigning blame and knowing who knew what and when. The leaguecan't vacate the World Series win like the NCAA does, making things un-happen and pulling championship banners from the rafters.Nor can MLB police it effectively, even if itshad the resources to scour every park for any hidden camera before and during every game, including all the phones in the hands of thousands of fans.Picture Joe Torre bumbling around in a trench coat and tweed trilbylike Inspector Clouseauor frisking people between innings like Frank Drebin.

The best move might be to get rid of catchers' signals entirely, using an electronic indication of some kind.Instead of the bench sending the pitch to the catcher and having him do the wiggly-finger bit, the manager can tap a button that alerts the battery members simultaneously via an implanted speaker or some palpable taps or vibrations.Should the catcher have pitch-calling autonomy, he could have the menu on the inside of the wrist on his glove hand, easily shielded from prying eyes.Any fielders needing to know the pitch for positioning purposes could be similarly outfitted for reception.MLB would maintain the integrity of a standardized system in all parks, much in the way the NFL keeps tabs on its closed-loop speaker systems to ensure no wiretaps or hacking.

It's not perfect, but it's the way baseball should start thinking.The only way to end the practice is to remove the opportunity.

Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Scores Bernstein & McKnight Show in midday. You can follow him on Twitter@Dan_Bernstein.

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Bernstein: MLB Needs Technology To Combat Cheating - 670 The Score

Google to offer personal banking accounts in partnership with Citigroup – The Guardian

Google is preparing to launch a personal checking account service, a move that comes as its big tech rivals are increasingly focused on consumer finance.

The project, in partnership with Citigroup and code-named Cache, is expected to launch next year.

The existence of project, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes as some of the worlds biggest tech companies are challenging the primacy of the banking industry.

Over the past year, Facebook has announced it is working on a digital currency, Apple has introduced a credit card and Amazon has been in talks with banks to introduce personal accounts for consumers.

Each, in turn, is likely to stoke fears of consumers and regulators alike that technology companies are gathering too much information on their consumers.

News of the project comes a day after a whistleblower revealed the existence of Project Nightingale Googles partnership with the healthcare giant Ascendant that could give Google access to personal medical data of up to 50 million Americans.

On Tuesday, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, urged Europe to seize control of its data from Silicon Valley tech giants and establish digital sovereignty instead of relying on Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

So many companies have just outsourced all their data to US companies, Merkel said.

Im not saying thats bad in and of itself I just mean that the value-added products that come out of that, with the help of artificial intelligence, will create dependencies that Im not sure are a good thing.

While Google has enormous reach 1.4 billion people regularly use Gmail so far each of the tech giants financial offerings have run into problems.

Several partners have pulled out of Facebooks Libra cryptocurrency after regulators signaled opposition, while Apples credit card partner, Goldman Sachs, has been sued for allegedly offering discriminatory credit limits.

According to the Journal, Google is not planning to self-brand its checking or personal account service.

Our approach is going to be to partner deeply with banks and the financial system, Google executive Caesar Sengupta said. It may be the slightly longer path, but its more sustainable.

Sengupta said Google would not sell checking account users financial data in the same way that Google does not share data from its fast-growing service Google Pay with advertisers.

If we can help more people do more stuff in a digital way online, its good for the internet and good for us, Sengupta told the newspaper.

But how far Google will have to go to reassure a wary public that it can be trusted with what is arguably their most intimate information money and health is open to question.

The consulting firm McKinsey & Company found only 58% of people surveyed said they would trust the company with financial products.

A 2017 study by Bain & Company found that 45% of those surveyed in the UK said that existing banks offered all the services they need online.

David Donovan, a technology-banking specialist at Publicis Sapient, said technology companies are partnering with banks to deal with the regulatory issues.

They could prove to be a Trojan horse over time, Donovan said. But the banks are also thinking this is an easy way to get customer acquisition so it could be a win-win for both sides.

Consumers increasingly expect the same type of experience from banks as they get from Apple or Google and big tech is undoubtably going to be in financial services in some way, independently or by partnership, Donovan believes.

Theres an emerging demographic accustomed to a certain experience underpinned by emergent technology and banks are saddled with a lot of legacy technology. So theyre going to have to upgrade to be more digitally native and responsive, or theyre going to be disintermediated, or left out, by technology companies, he said.

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Google to offer personal banking accounts in partnership with Citigroup - The Guardian

The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: NetEase, New Oriental Education & Technology and JinkoSolar – Nasdaq

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL November 14, 2019 Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: NetEase, Inc. NTES, New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. EDU and JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. JKS.

Here are highlights from Wednesdays Analyst Blog:

3 Chinese ADRs to Gain from a Likely Trade Deal

A trade agreement between the United States and China is still uncertain despite encouraging comments from officials of both nations. However, the recent enthusiasm of the two nations in reaching a deal made investors somewhat optimistic lately.

There has been a decent progress on the trade deal front in the past few weeks. Particularly, comments by President Donald Trump and economic advisor Larry Kudlow earlier this week hinted at a potential trade deal.

Let us, thus, take a look at some U.S.-listed Chinese stocks that will benefit the most if the a deal materializes.

Rising Optimism on U.S.-China Trade Relationship

The U.S.-China trade war has rattled the financial markets for 19 months, as industries reliant on trade suffered because of the high tariffs that the two countries imposed on each others imports. However, there has been some relief since October 2019 after the two countries agreed on a phase one deal.

Two major developments emerged out of the October trade talks. First, Trump decided not to proceed with an escalation in tariffs on about $250 billion worth of Chinese goods from the incumbent 25% to 30% beginning Oct 15. Second, a 15% tariff imposition on about $156 billion of Chinese products (known as List 4B) from Dec 15 was also kept on hold.

While speaking at the Economic Club of New York on Nov 12, Trump blamed previous U.S. leaders who negotiated trade deals with China with scope for manipulation. However, the president repeated that a significant phase-one trade deal with the China could be reached.

Addressing the issue of cancelling punitive tariffs, Trump said, China would like to get somewhat of a rollback, not a complete rollback, because they know I won't do itFrankly, they want to make a deal a lot more than I do.

Trumps comments aptly point toward the trade wars adverse effect on China. Chinas factory activity shrank for the sixth straight month in October, as the Purchasing Managers Index for manufacturing came in at 49.3. A reading below 50 indicates contraction.

Later on the same day, Kudlow said in an interview that there is a possibility of tariffs to be adjusted, but there would be no adjustment until a final deal is reached. Kudlows comments were in response to Chinas demand for the existing tariffs to be removed as part of the phase one trade deal.

He said that the two countries had made progress on issues such as intellectual property theft, financial services, currency stability, commodities and agriculture. Kudlow added that there could be some issues as part of a second-phase agreement with China.

Also, the agreement, which was anticipated to be signed at the APEC Summit in November, has been deferred to December.

Our Choices

We have, therefore, shortlisted three U.S.-listed Chinese stocks that have outperformed the Zacks S&P 500 composite so far this year and are well positioned to do even better if a final deal between the two countries is reached. After all, business growth of these companies will accelerate if the trade barriers are removed.

These three stocks carry a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy).

NetEase, Inc. is an operator of an interactive online community in China. The company offers online gaming services, e-commerce and advertising services etc. The company carries a Zacks Rank #1. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Coherus BioSciences current-year earnings has risen 1.1% over the past 60 days. The stock has gained 25.9% year to date versus the S&P 500s 21.9% growth. You can seethe complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc.is a provider of private educational services in China. The company offers language training and test preparation courses, online education programs and overseas studies consulting services etc. The company carries a zacks Rank #1. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Coherus BioSciences current-year earnings has risen 0.3% over the past 60 days. The stock has gained 118.4% year to date.

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There Will Be No Turning Back on Facial Recognition – New York Magazine

Taylor Swift has used facial recognition at concerts to screen for stalkers. Photo: Gareth Cattermole/TAS18/Getty Images for TAS/2018 Gareth Cattermole/TAS18

On Friday, August 16, at around 7 a.m., a pair of suspicious appliances was found on a subway platform at the Fulton Street station in lower Manhattan and, an hour later, a third near a garbage can on West 16th Street. Initially, police thought they might be improvised bombs, like the shrapnel-filled pressure cookers that blew up at the 2013 Boston Marathon and in Chelsea in 2016, but upon inspection they turned out to be harmless empty rice cookers, probably meant to scare but not explode. Trains were delayed during the morning commute, but since that happens often enough without any terrorist help at all, the scariest thing about this episode may have been the way the alleged perpetrator was caught.

Minutes after the discovery, the NYPD pulled images of a man leaving the devices from subway surveillance cameras and gave them to its Facial Identification Section (FIS), which ran them through software that automatically compared his face to millions of mug shots in the police departments database. The program spit back hundreds of potential matches in which officers quickly spotted their person of interest: Larry Griffin II, a homeless 26-year-old the NYPD had arrested in March with drug paraphernalia. FIS double-checked its surveillance pictures against Griffins social-media accounts, and by 8:15 a.m., his name and photos were sent to the cell phones of every cop in New York. He was arrested in the Bronx late that night and charged with three counts of planting a false bomb. (He pleaded not guilty.)

This might seem like a feel-good story: A potentially dangerous person was identified and apprehended with previously impossible speed and no casualties thanks to by-the-book use of new technology (or newish; the NYPD has used facial-recognition software since 2011). But zoom out a little and it looks more like a silver lining on one of this years biggest feel-bad stories: The facial-recognition system that ensnared Griffin is only a small piece of a sprawling, invisible, privacy-wrecking surveillance apparatus that now surrounds all of us, built under our noses (and using our noses) by tech companies, law enforcement, commercial interests, and a secretive array of data brokers and other third parties.

In 2019, facial recognition may have finally graduated from dystopian underdog it was only the fourth- or fifth-most-frightening thing in Minority Report; its never played more than a supporting role on Black Mirror; and in the Terminator movies, it was a crucial safety feature preventing the Terminator from terminating the wrong people to full-grown modern worry.

A brief recap of the year of Face Panic:

This spring, we heard that the FBIs facial recognition database now includes more than 641 million images and the identities of an unsuspecting majority of Americans, which can be searched anytime without warrant or probable cause.

We also heard that spooked lawmakers banned police use of facial recognition in Oakland; Berkeley; Somerville, Massachusetts; and San Francisco, of all places, where Orwellian tech products are the hometown industry.

But everywhere else and in all other contexts, facial recognition is legal and almost completely unregulated and we heard that its already being used on us in city streets, airports, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, sporting events, churches, and presumably lots of other places we just dont know about.

Over the summer, we heard a rumor about a novelty photo app that might be a secret ploy by the Russian government to harvest our selfies for its own facial recognition database. That turned out to be false (or at least we think so), but it mightve made us reconsider all the photos weve given to other companies whose loophole-filled terms of use agreements translate to we own your face including Facebook, which is thought to have one of the worlds largest facial recognition databases and has not exactly proven itself to be the most responsible custodian of our private information.

We barely heard about the Commercial Facial Recognition Privacy Act of 2019, a bill introduced in March by Republican Senator Roy Blunt and Democrat Brian Schatz that would have prohibited companies from using facial recognition to track you in public, and collect or sell your face data, without your consent. It was the kind of common-sense bipartisan proposal that almost everybody can agree with; it was referred to a committee and never made it to a vote.

But we heard a lot about facial recognitionsunreliability, and that misidentifications are common, especially for people of color, and that the London Metropolitan Polices system has an appalling failure rate, and that Amazons software once mistook a bunch of seemingly upstanding congresspeople for criminal suspects. Maybe that meant, we hoped, that the technology was still only half-baked and that our worries were premature, and that one big lawsuit could make it all go away.

And then we heard about Larry Griffin II. And if his story was meant to calm any fears about facial recognition, well, mission not necessarily accomplished. If the software works well enough to identify one bomb-hoax suspect among 8.4 million New Yorkers in under an hour using only a couple of grainy surveillance photos, maybe our worries arent so premature after all. Because even though facial recognition isnt fully reliable yet, and it might never be, its already transforming law enforcement. And it probably wont need to be perfect before it transforms our everyday lives, too.

In a possibly related story, perhaps you have noticed an unusually high demand for pictures of your face over the past several years?

Computerized facial recognition has been in development since the 1960s. Progress was steady but slow, though, until the recent arrival of advanced artificial neural networks i.e., computer systems modeled on animal brains that can recognize patterns by processing examples which have allowed human programmers to feed these networks many photos of faces and then step aside while algorithms teach themselves what faces look like and then how to tell those faces apart and eventually how to decide if a face in one photo is the same face in a different photo, even if that face is wearing sunglasses or makeup or a mustache or is poorly lit or slightly blurry in one image but not the other. The more photos an algorithm has to learn from millions or billions, ideally the more accurate it becomes.

Some companies asked you to upload your vacation photos and tag yourself in them. And others asked for a selfie in exchange for an autogenerated cartoon caricature of you or to tell you which celebrity or Renaissance painting you most resemble. And then some companies got impatient with all this asking, so they acquired the other companies that had already collected your photos, or they scraped public images of you from social media and dating sites, or they set up hidden cameras in public spaces to take their own pictures.

How many algorithms have been trained on your face? Hard to say, because there arent really any laws requiring your consent, but Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and dozens of start-ups with names like Facefirst, FaceX, and Trueface all have their own facial-recognition algorithms, and they had to have learned somewhere.

Some of those algorithms are pretty accurate, too, at least under optimal conditions. Last year, the U.S. Department of Commerces National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tested 127 facial-recognition algorithms from 40 developers to see how often they could find matches in a large database. With high-quality images to compare, the top-performing algorithms only failed to return the correct match in 0.2 percent of searches, which is 20 times better than the results of a similar test in 2014.

Facial recognition will inevitably improve on its own, but it might be even more accurate when used in combination with other long-range biometrics. In China, gait recognition is already identifying people based on the way they walk, with 94 percent accuracy according to one company offering the service. And the Pentagon claims to have developed a heartbeat laser that is, an infrared beam that can read a persons unique cardiac signature through a shirt or jacket, allegedly with 95 percent accuracy. (The current model can reportedly detect a heartbeat from 200 meters away, but with a slightly better laser, however: I dont want to say you could do it from space, a Pentagon source told the MIT Technology Review, but longer ranges should be possible.)

For facial-recognition software to recognize you in the wild, it needs to be connected to a database with your photo and identifying information in it. (Just because an algorithm has trained with your face doesnt mean it knows who you are.) Unless youre Elena Ferrante or a member of Daft Punk, and maybe even if you are them, theres a good chance youre in a database or two.

If youve ever been tagged in a photo on Facebook or Instagram, for example, you belong to what is by Facebooks own claims the worlds largest facial-recognition database, to which users add hundreds of millions of new images every day. The companys facial-recognition algorithm, DeepFace, which is constantly retraining itself on those new images, is presumed to be more accurate than software used by most law-enforcement agencies.

For now, Facebook says it only uses DeepFace to suggest tags when users upload new pictures. But that didnt help the company in August when a federal appeals court ruled that 7 million Facebook users in Illinois can sue the company for storing their face data without permission, which they claim is a violation of the states BiometricInformationPrivacy Act, currently the only such law in the U.S., which could make Facebook liable for as much as $5,000 per affected user or $35 billion total. (In response, Facebook has stopped suggesting tags for photos by default.)

The FBIs facial-recognition database spans mug shots, the State Departments entire directory of visa and passport pictures, and photos from the Departments of Motor Vehicles in at least 22 states (and counting) that allowed the agency to scan residents drivers licenses without their consent. (In Utah, Vermont, and Washington, where undocumented immigrants can legally drive, DMVs have shared facial recognition data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.) If youve managed to keep yourself out of the FBIs database so far, that may get harder in October 2020, when Americans in 47 states will be required to show either a passport or a new federally compliant Real ID drivers license to board any domestic flight.

All of this would be bothersome enough in a world with perfect data security or one in which you could get a new face as easily as your bank replaces a stolen debit card. But we live in neither of those worlds, and faces have already been hacked. In June, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that hackers had breached the servers of one of its subcontractors and stolen travelers face data, some of which reportedly turned up on the dark web.

Despite plenty of more deserving scandals, though, none caused as much hysteria in 2019 as FaceApp. In July, all of your friends, plus Snooki, the Jonas Brothers, and Lebron James, shared pictures taken with the image-processing tool, which went viral by making users look like elderly people. But panic ensued when they read FaceApps merciless terms of use agreement. (You grant FaceApp a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sub-licensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your User Content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your User Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed, without compensation to you.) And then even more panic ensued when they found out FaceApp is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Russia. Had Vladimir Putin tricked America again, this time into handing over the elusive face data of its influencers?

No, or at least probably not. FaceApp denied that the company shares data with third parties, and claimed most user images are deleted within 48 hours, which seemed to stem fears. But if FaceApp did decide to pull up stakes and pivot to facial recognition, it would not be the first company like it to do so: The photo-management app EverRoll launched in 2012 and collected 13 billion images in which users had tagged themselves and their friends. EverRolls parent company, which recently renamed itself Paravision, discontinued the app in 2016 and used those images to train its facial recognition software, which is now ranked as the No. 3 most accurate algorithm tested by NIST and is sold to law enforcement.

The worst-casescenario for facial recognition might look like something likeChinas forthcoming social credit system.When the system is fully operational next year, the government will use all surveillance methods at its disposal, including facial recognition and 200 million cameras, to track citizens behavior and assign each of them a social score, which will have a variety of consequences. Infractions such as jaywalking and buying too many video games could make it harder to rent an apartment or get a loan from a bank. That probably isnt likely in the U.S., but a more ordinary kind of surveillance is almost inevitable. Maybe its already here.

Commercial facial recognition has been around for years, but since there arent any laws requiring anyone to disclose that theyre using it on you, its impossible to say how widespread it is. Which means any camera you pass could be recognizing your face.

Among the many vendors offering commercial facial recognition software is Face-Six, a Tel Avivbased company founded by Moshe Greenshpan in 2012 after Skakash, a mobile app he was developing that would have identified actors in movies and TV shows, failed to attract investors. Greenshpan says he now serves more than 500 customers worldwide, offering a variety of custom products, including FA6 Retail (to prevent shoplifting), FA6 Class (to take attendance in schools), FA6 Med (for use in hospitals to verify patients identities and prevent treatment errors), and FA6 Drone (which identifies criminals, missing people, and civilians from a drones camera, and which is available for government and private uses.) But Greenshpans most controversial product has been Churchix, which he sells to churches that want to keep track of which parishioners are showing up to mass.

Churchix attracted negative coverage when it launched in 2015, some of which is linked to on the companys website. In the beginning, all press was good press, says Greenshpan. You really need to explain to people why facial recognition is more good than bad. Churches manage attendance manually, but when we provide an efficient tool that does it automatically, suddenly there are concerns. And if those concerns include transparency? We dont know what each and every customer does with our software, Greenshpan says, but usually churches [that use Churchix] dont tell their members.

But Greenshpan does connect me with David Weil, founder of the Warehouse, an after-school recreation center and skateboarding park in Bloomington, Indiana, which uses Face-Sixs software on two security cameras, for one extremely specific purpose: Our building is five acres under one roof, and there are over 200 registered sexual offenders in the area, says Weil. So with that much space and that many pedophiles, this software really helped us.

As visitors enter the building, the cameras scan their faces, and Face-Sixs software searches them against a database provided by the local sheriffs office. According to Weil, the Warehouse had 72,000 visits in 2018, and facial recognition managed to keep out two sex offenders: We just politely told them, Were a youth center. Youre not allowed to be here, he says. I had one false ID, but the gentleman was very understanding of the situation.

Among the other ways we know facial recognition is already being deployed:

Airlines are using it to replace boarding passes, and the Department of Homeland Security says it plans to use facial recognition on 97 percent of airline passengers by 2022.

And at least three arenas have experimented with the technology, including Madison Square Garden.

On stops of Taylor Swifts recent Reputation tour, fans faces were scanned and searched against a database of her hundreds of known stalkers.

Last year, residents of an apartment complex in Brownsville protested when they found out their landlord wanted to use facial recognition to supplement their key fobs but other buildings in the city have been known to use it for years, including the 12 that make up the Knickerbocker Village complex on the Lower East Side. Some virtual-doorman systems include it, too.

At least eight public-school districts in the U.S. have installed facial-recognition systems to detect suspended students and anyone else banned from school grounds.

Retailers use facial recognition to prevent theft, and some software even comes bundled with databases of known shoplifters, but not many stores will admit to it. Last year, the ACLU asked 20 top retail chains whether they use facial recognition, including Best Buy, Costco, Target, and Walmart, and only received two answers rom the grocery conglomerate Ahold Delhaize, whose brands include Food Lion and Stop & Shop, which doesnt use it, andfrom the hardware chain Lowes, which tested facial recognition in the past but has since stopped.

Retailers dont need to run facial-recognition software on their premises to benefit from it. Apple denies using the technology in its brick-and-mortar locations, but in one confusing incident last year, a New York teenager was arrested and charged with stealing from multiple Apple Stores when police said he was identified by facial recognition. Apple apparently employs an outside firm called Security Industry Specialists in some locations; SIS may have run facial-recognition software on surveillance footage captured inside the Apple Stores the teen was alleged to have stolen from. (Charges were dropped against him when an NYPD detective realized he looked nothing like the suspect in the footage of the robberies. In April, the teen sued Apple and SIS for $1 billion.)

Facial recognition could soon be more valuable to retailers in other ways. One likely possibility is that some will eliminate checkout lines by having customers pay with their faces. Another is using facial recognition to target the people most likely to buy things by tracking their in-person shopping habits the same way cookies track our online ones or maybe, eventually, using what they know about our virtual selves to direct us toward products in the real world. If youve ever been creeped out by an uncannily well-targeted ad served to you on Facebook or Instagram, imagine being helped by a retail employee who knows whats in your web history.

But what if youre not the person facial recognition says you are? Last year, the ACLU used Amazons facial recognition software, Rekognition, to search a database of 25,000 mug shots using photos of members of Congress and found that it misidentified 28 lawmakers as criminals, including six members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and a similar test this summer mistook 26 California state legislators, again with people of color overrepresented in the false matches.

Amazon says the ACLU intentionally misrepresented its software by setting its confidence threshold too low the company recommends that police act only on matches in which the system expresses at least 99 percent confidence but theres nothing to prevent police from doing the same thing. Its toothless, says Jacob Snow, the technology-and-civil-liberties attorney at the ACLU who ran the tests. Amazon could say to law enforcement, Were going to set the confidence threshold at 99 percent, and you cant change it. But theyre not doing that.

Dark skin isnt the only thing facial recognition fails with. In NISTs tests, it found that even top-performing algorithms had trouble identifying photos of the same person at different ages and were often unable to tell the difference between twins not just identical twins but fraternal ones of the same sex, too. And performance depends on the clarity of the photos being used. NIST was primarily comparing high-quality mug shots to other high-quality mug shots, but under real-world conditions, with blurry surveillance photos taken at bad angles by cameras that may have been set up incorrectly, results may vary.

Even a facial-recognition system with low error rates can cause problems when deployed at large scale. During six recent tests of the London polices facial-recognition system, which scanned the faces of people on public streets in search of wanted suspects, 42 matches were made but only eight were verified to be correct (30 matches were eventually confirmed to be misidentifications, and four of the 42 people disappeared into crowds before officers were able to make contact). Because they scanned thousands of faces in total, the London police said their error rate was 0.1 percent, but most headlines begged to differ: LONDON POLICE FACIAL RECOGNITION FAILS 80% OF THE TIME AND MUST STOP NOW, said one.

Police have also been caught taking creative license with the technology. A report published in May by the Georgetown Universitys Center on Privacy and Technology found that six departments in the U.S. allow officers to run composite sketches of suspects through facial-recognition software. That same report tells the story of a suspect whod been caught by surveillance cameras allegedly stealing beer from a CVS in Gramercy Park in 2017, but the video was low quality and no useful matches were returned. A detective noticed, though, that the man bore a resemblance to Woody Harrelson, so he ran a search using an image of the actor which eventually led to an arrest. The person they ended up investigating was the tenth person on the candidate list, says Georgetown Laws Clare Garvie, the author of the report, meaning the algorithm thought nine other people [in the NYPDs mug-shot database] looked more like Woody Harrelson. If you can put person A into an algorithm and find person B, why does that not prove that if youre looking for looking for person B, you might accidentally find person A? They intentionally forced a misidentification as a valid investigative technique.

NYPD spokesperson Devora Kaye notes that this case was just one of more than 5,300 requests to FIS in 2017. The NYPD, she says, only uses facial recognition as an investigative tool and doesnt arrest or detain suspects whose identities havent been corroborated by other means. A facial recognition match is a lead. No one has ever been arrested solely on the basis of a computer match, no matter how compelling.

If Larry Griffin IIs story typifies a best-case use of facial recognition for law enforcement, Kaitlin Jackson, a public defense attorney with the Bronx Defenders, tells me one that exposes its drawbacks. Jackson represented a man whod been arrested for the theft of socks from a T.J. Maxx store in February 2018, supposedly after brandishing a box cutter at a security guard. My client was picked up months after the robbery, and the only way I even found out facial recognition was used was that I just started calling the prosecutor and saying, How in the world did you decide months after that it was my client? There are no forensics, she says. It turned out the police went to T.J. Maxx security and said, We want to pull the surveillance , were going to run it through facial recognition so they were already cluing him in that any suspect will have been picked by facial recognition. And then they texted the security guard a single photo that he knows has been run through facial recognition, and they said, Is this the person? Thats the most suggestive procedure you could possibly imagine. And then they make the arrest and say its on the basis of an [eyewitness] ID, and they try to bury that this is a facial-recognition case. (The NYPD said the defendant had committed a theft at the same store before and said the security guard knew him from prior interactions. The detective on the case showed him an image hoping it would put a name to a face, the department said in a legal filing.)

Jacksons client had at least two lines of defense: He has a twin brother, who could have triggered the facial-recognition match although Jackson doesnt think the twin stole any socks either but more important, his wife was in labor at the time of the theft and he was in the delivery room. We had pictures of them at the hospital, and his name was on the birth certificate, says Jackson. But the prosecution would not dismiss the case partly, she suspects, because they have an undying faith that the software doesnt get it wrong. Their only recourse, she said, would be to argue, Maybe he left a few minutes before his baby was delivered and ran out to get socks and then came back.

Jackson says her client spent half of last year in prison. He was on probation when he was arrested. So our real problem was the way that all these systems interact. Probation lodged a hold, and they would not withdraw the hold because of this case, and the prosecution wouldnt dismiss this case. And then finally [the prosecution] offered him something that would get him out of jail. So he did what a lot of us would he took a plea of something he did not do.

But facial recognition is about more than just who you are, and what youve bought, and the crimes you have or havent committed, and whether your resemblance to a sex offender will make it hard to find places to skateboard its also about how you feel. Because another thing the technology can do, or at least supposedly do, is detect emotions.

Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, and others claim their software can guess which emotion youre feeling based on your facial expressions or in some cases microexpressions, under the logic that even if you attempt to hide your feelings, certain facial muscles are beyond your control.Amazon, for example, says Rekognition can infer whether a face is expressing happiness, sadness, anger, confusion, disgust, surprise, calmness, or fear although the documentation warns that results are not a determination of a persons internal emotional state and should not be used in such a way, and that a person pretending to have a sad face might not be sad emotionally.

Other vendors are more confident in their mood-reading abilities. The London-based start-up RealEyes markets a service to advertisers that scans peoples faces through their computers webcams to measure their attention level and emotions while they watch commercials. The Utah-based company Hirevue claims its software can analyze video job interviews to judge personality traits and eliminate disinterested candidates. (Hirevues clients include Dunkin Donuts, Staples, and Urban Outfitters.)

On its website, the facial-recognition company Kairos brags about the work it did for Legendary Pictures gauging reactions of audience members at movie test screenings: More than 450,000 emotional measurements were recorded per minute over the screening of preview films, for a total of around 100 million facial measurements processed in total. Kairos says Legendary used that data to determine which parts of movies worked best in ads, identify the demographics most likely to share trailers, and ensure Legendarys movies were appealing to mainstream audiences as well as their targeted fan demographic. Neither Kairos nor Legendary Pictures would confirm which movies were involved, but Kairos CEO Melissa Doval says the screenings probably happened in 2013 or 2014, and theres a picture from the 2013 Superman movieMan of Steelon Kairos website.

Your facial tics may not necessarily lose you any jobs or give the wrong impression about your taste in superhero movies, though because emotion-detection software might not really work. In July, a group of five top psychologists published areportinPsychological Science in the Public Interest,which cited over 1,000 other journal articles and found that facial expressions are more complex than the software gives them credit for: It is not possible to confidently infer happiness from a smile, anger from a scowl or sadness from a frown, as much of current technology tries to do when applying what are mistakenly believed to be the scientific facts.

Ultimately, the most worrisome thing about facial recognition might be how accessible it is. Because its not just available to governments and corporationsits also for sale to you, me, your landlord, random perverts, and anyone else with a camera and a computer, and for cheaper than youd probably expect: Amazons Rekognition, for example, offers a free year-long trial that lets you identify faces in 5,000 images or 1,000 minutes of video per month (and after that, its a penny per ten photos or ten cents per minute of video).

If none of the off-the-shelf software packages suit your particular needs, it turns out its pretty easy, if you know what youre doing, to roll your own facial-recognition app using freely available open-source code. I watched one YouTube tutorial in which a programmer built his own facial-recognition system that could distinguish between his face and the cast of Game of Thrones.

Its not hard to imagine more sinister applications. This spring, a developer claimed on Chinese social media that hed used facial recognition and publicly available photos from Facebook and Instagram to identify 100,000 women in amateur porn videos. He didnt share any proof and may have been lying but given all the other seemingly unbelievable things about facial recognition we now know to be true, maybe he wasnt.

I wanted to experiment myself, so I bought a Tend Insights Lynx Indoor 2, a tiny and cheap but well-reviewed home security camera that comes bundled with its own facial-recognition software. It worked well for what it did, which in my case wasnt much: I set the camera on my desk, connected it to my Wi-Fi network, downloaded the companion iPhone app, and uploaded a picture of myself so it knew what I looked like. I left my apartment, and in a few minutes when I came back, the Lynx sent a push notification to my phone to tell me I was home, along with a short video for proof. That may not sound like $60 well spent, but it was a small price for a feeling of control I might never have again: After the inaugural test of my home facial-recognition system, I unplugged it and stuffed it in a drawer.

*This article appears in the November 11, 2019, issue ofNew York Magazine. Subscribe Now!

The one story you shouldn't miss today, selected byNew York's editors.

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There Will Be No Turning Back on Facial Recognition - New York Magazine

USM’s Graham Participating in White House Summit on Partnerships in Ocean Science and Technology – Southern Miss Now

Thu, 11/14/2019 - 17:20pm | By: James Coll

Dr. Monty Graham, Associate Vice President for Research at The University of Southern Mississippi, Coastal Operations, is a participating in todays White House Summit on Partnerships in Ocean Science and Technology in Washington D.C.Graham is joining about 100 national leaders with ocean science expertise and interests in the nations capital for the summit hosted by Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Mary Neumayr, Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, within the Executive Office of the President. The summit is intended to bring together the private sector, academia, philanthropies, and the Federal government to discuss opportunities for building and sustaining partnerships in ocean-related research and promote technologies and investments.

The nation clearly has more needs than we have resources to meet those needs, Graham said. Partnerships are the key. What we are doing in the Gulf, in particular the Mississippi coast, is serving as a model to the nation on how to use partnerships between academia, industry, government and philanthropy to meet large and critical science and technology needs."

In addition to identifying opportunities to building cross-sector partnerships, the purpose of the summit is to engage the national community in the conversation through academic conferences and regional ocean science and technology centers. The event aligns with a 2018 Trump Administration executive order recognizing and supporting federal participation in regional ocean partnerships to advance the economic, security, and environmental interests of the United States.

Graham has also been recently selected to chair the national Consortium for Ocean Leadership (COL) Board of Trustees based in Washington, D.C. through 2021. He also serves as chair of Mississippi Governor Phil Bryants Ocean Task Force and co-chair of the Gulf Caribbean Oceanographic Consortium, and he is a board member for Ocean Exploration Trust, Inc.

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USM's Graham Participating in White House Summit on Partnerships in Ocean Science and Technology - Southern Miss Now

Virginia Beach Education Foundation using grant money for technology to improve physical education – 13newsnow.com WVEC

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. It might not be the way you remember gym class.

The Virginia Beach Education Foundation is using $38,902.94 in grant money to transform physical education at two Virginia Beach locations.

The Juvenile Detention Center and Parkway Elementary School were surprised with grant money on Thursday.

The JDC received $18,802.94, which it'll use to buy "Heart Zone Systems." If you haven't heard of them, they're like FitBits. Students will wear them during PE.

The Juvenile Detention Center will use its grant money to buy Heart Zone Systems for students to wear during PE. Pictured, from left to right, Shelley Labiosa, VBCPS employee and grant reviewer; John Mason, math teacher; Superintendent Aaron Spence; Jon Mazach, Virginia Beach Education Foundation treasurer; Jeff McGowan, health and p.e. teacher; Charles Foster, principal; Janene Gorham, director of Professional Growth and Innovation for VBCPS.

Virginia Beach City Public Schools

Parkway students are getting a really cool upgrade.

The school is using its $20,000 grant to buy a "Lu Interactive Playground."

Parkway Elementary School P.E. teacher Casey Hughes was surprised with the grant check.

Virginia Beach City Public Schools

The technologically advanced playground includes light and audio systems and a giant wall projection with 3D cameras for interactive physical activity.

The wall projection can come with apps that focus on different subjects like math, geography, even problem solving among other things all while students stay active.

The grants are two of 79 "Adopt A+ Grants." The 79 grants total $200,000.

The foundation plans to continue to surprise teachers and schools across the city with the grant money.

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Virginia Beach Education Foundation using grant money for technology to improve physical education - 13newsnow.com WVEC

Why American Outdoor Brands, International Game Technology, and Dillard’s Jumped Today – Motley Fool

The stock market came under modest pressure on Thursday, although pullbacks were still relatively small and major benchmarks stayed close to their historic highs. Bad news on the earnings front from a major tech company weighed on investor sentiment, and some worried rising unemployment claims were a potential harbinger of economic weakness. Yet even with a slightly downbeat mood on Wall Street, some stocks managed to post strong gains. American Outdoor Brands (NASDAQ:AOBC), International Game Technology (NYSE:IGT), and Dillard's (NYSE:DDS) were among the top performers. Here's why they did so well.

Shares of American Outdoor Brands gained 6% after it announced that it would break itself up into two companies. American Outdoor said it would spin off its firearm business into a company to be known as Smith & Wesson Brands, with the remaining corporate entity keeping its original name and containing the outdoor products and accessories business. Board chair Barry Monheit said he expects the breakup to let each company "better align its strategic objectives with its capital allocation priorities." Given the challenges related to the gun business overall, it'll be interesting to see which stock performs better once the deal closes in the second half of 2020.

Image source: American Outdoor Brands.

International Game Technology saw its stock climb more than 23% after reporting its third-quarter financial results. Revenue for the slot machine and lottery specialistwas essentially flat from year-earlier levels, and adjusted earnings per share plunged 32% year over year. Yet investors seemed pleased with the numbers, in part because of how the company fought against higher taxes in the Italian market and particularly strong performance in the year-ago quarter. Moreover, IGT's outlook was reasonably solid, and those following the stock are excited about the innovative CrystalBetting terminal and how it could be an even bigger draw both for players and for the company.

Finally, shares of Dillard's rose 14%. The department store retailer surprised investors by making a modest profit in the third quarter of 2019, and even though both revenue and net income were down year over year, Dillard's managed to post flat comparable sales. That was an improvement from the previous quarter. CEO William Dillard said that "we were not satisfied with the third quarter," but shareholders seemed happy about the progress that Dillard's has made in fighting back against an extremely difficult environment for department-store retailers.

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Common Networks bets 5G wireless technology will replace cable internet in your home – CNBC

A Common Networks field technician installing Terragraph technology on a roof in San Francisco

At first blush, inventing a start-up to challenge AT&T, Verizon and Comcast for high-speed broadband dominance seems crazy.

It takes billions of dollars to lay fiber in the ground historically, the only way to deliver ultrafast internet speeds to residential homes. The prohibitive cost has stopped some of the largest companies in the world from making a national dent in constructing high-speed broadband networks, including Verizon and Google. Meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T already plan to roll out 5G fixed broadband services in cities across the U.S., using wireless technology to compete with cable companies to provide home internet.

But Zach Brock, the CEO of Common Networks, a company he founded with three other ex-Square employees, said he believes he has helped design a technology that can upend the U.S. telecommunications market. For about $50 a month, Common Networks is offering 300Mb/sec to 1Gb/sec download speeds for households around Silicon Valley and Alameda (Oakland is coming soon). That's about $20 or $30 less per month than what Comcast charges for about the same speed without promotional pricing.

"Our focus is proving out of technology and showing we can deliver at an affordable cost," Brock said in an interview. "Our vision for the company is that everyone is connected to true broadband internet."

Common Networks, founded about three and a half years ago, leases existing fiber and uses unlicensed 5G microwave and millimeter spectrum to interact with its antenna-like devices that are installed on rooftops. Using open-source software and hardware, through a partnership with Facebook's Terragraph technology, Common Networks developed so-called graph-based technology that can deliver high-speed internet for what Brock said is about one-tenth the cost of what a telecommunications company has historically paid. To date Common Networks claims to reach more than 100,000 customers, though the company doesn't disclose its paying subscriber numbers.

The technology's prospects have been strong enough to bring in $34 million in funding from venture capital investors including General Catalyst, Eclipse Ventures and Lux Capital. On Tuesday the company made the 2019 CNBC's Upstart 100 list of the world's most promising start-ups.

Brock said his initial focus is single-family homes that don't have high-speed broadband options or have to rely on old DSL technology for Internet. Perhaps surprisingly, more than 22% of residents in San Leandro, California one of five cities Common Networks currently serves don't have a home broadband subscription of any kind. Cable companies often choose not to spend the money to connect buildings or regions of the country where they expect minimal customer retention.

"For many it may be likely that residential broadband internet is either not available or is not affordable," Magellan Advisors wrote in a review of the city's internet usage and capabilities.

More from Upstart 100:Amazon has triggered an arms race in this technologyWhy Kevin Durant and other NBA stars are betting millions on a start-up to challenge TV sportsAhead of 2020 presidential election, this start-up is using military-grade AI to stamp out fake news

Getting a foothold into homes that want broadband but can't access it may be the easiest path for the start-up, but the ultimate goal is to compete head-to-head against both cable companies and wireless providers, Brock said. Distributing broadband can be a very high-margin business, as most of the cost is fixed network infrastructure and upkeep. Cable companies, such as Comcast and Charter Communications, the two largest U.S. operators, have shifted their business models to invest billions of dollars in boosting nationwide speeds while spending less effort keeping traditional television subscribers.

Zach Brock, CEO of Common Networks.

Source: Common Networks

"Providing internet service is a very large market," said Kyle Doherty, a managing director at General Catalyst, whose venture capital firm led a $25 million Series B funding round in Common Networks last year. "High-speed broadband still isn't ubiquitous, but it will be in the future. There's a fair share of incumbents, but we're pretty compelled by the approach they're taking."

Common Networks doesn't lay any fiber nor does it need government permits to provide internet. Eschewing the enormous upfront costs of broadband infrastructure gives the company a chance to compete against much larger players if pricing is lower and customer service is dramatically better, said Doherty.

High-speed broadband still isn't ubiquitous, but it will be in the future. There's a fair share of incumbents, but we're pretty compelled by the approach they're taking.

Kyle Doherty

managing director, General Catalyst

Still, it remains to be seen how quickly Common Networks can provide its technology outside of the San Francisco Bay Area. Regulations in certain cities could delay expansion, and being first to market is an important advantage for Common Networks, Doherty said.

Verizon's 5G Home Internet is currently available in limited areas of Los Angeles, Sacramento, Houston and Indianapolis. Verizon is charging the same $50-per-month price for households with a Verizon wireless account and $70 per month for homes that don't. Verizon is also giving away the first three months of home Internet for free.

Still, the technology needs to work reliably in all neighborhoods, said telecommunications analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson. Architectures based on millimeter wave spectrum suffer from wave-strength issues, he said.

"The signal doesn't travel far enough, or penetrate through obstructions well enough, to make it economically interesting," Moffett said.

But Common Networks "may have a better story to tell than the larger incumbents" because they're "all about keeping costs down," said Moffett, citing the company's use of unlicensed spectrum and limited spending on traditional network facilities.

"It's not clear how successful companies like Common Networks will be competing against the large incumbent ISPs, but there's certainly a place for them in the broadband landscape," Moffett said. "I think you'll see more and more companies like Common Networks."

Brock and his fellow former Square co-workers Grace Chen, Mark Jen and Jessica Shalek were drawn to internet distribution because cable companies have scored poorly in customer service satisfaction surveys for decades.

"There's a clear problem to solve," Brock said.

Part of the company's pitch to consumers is to be the anti-cable company in terms of customer relationships, Doherty said. Stressing the importance of the first installation, Common Networks technicians, who are all full-time employees, are trained to make a positive first impression with customers to spread word-of-mouth buzz about the company. Still, the company's primary selling point will be underpricing its competition because of the company's proprietary technology, Brock said.

Convincing customers to choose a start-up over a widely known incumbent's service will be a challenge. Brock and his team are trying to market Common Networks' service locally, going door-to-door and working with city government officials to participate in local events to spread the word.

"It's very local, and it's effective," Doherty said. "There are a lot of levers to pull, getting positive press in local newspapers and using door hangers. It's old-fashioned, but people are looking for a cheaper experience."

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

WATCH: Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg: Half of the US will have 5G phones by 2024

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Common Networks bets 5G wireless technology will replace cable internet in your home - CNBC

‘Better evidence’ needed on immersive technology | News – ArtsProfessional

There is no clear evidence yet that immersive experiences can provide benefits to museums, according to a new report calling for more research into their potential.

The study from the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) and Cardiff University says cultural institutions have often been testbeds for immersive approaches to attracting audiences and deepening engagement, such as virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed media. But it argues that attempts to find straightforward connections between investment and outcomes have been inconclusive.

There is a seductive logic that the use of participatory and networked technologies leads to increased interaction between an experience and those [who] take part in it, it says.

The broad conflation between more interactivity or more control over a narrative and more agency should be challenged.

READ MORE:* New realities: exploring the potential of VR/AR*New fund to help develop immersive content* Museums and tourist boards at odds

The report advocates for testing the value of immersive technologies and other interventions in a way that adequately captures the nuances of immersion in museum, gallery and heritage contexts.

While immersive experiences can give greater voice to the stories of disenfranchised or underrepresented groups, the report warns that playing with the line between fact and fiction can be understood as provocative and political.

Debates about authenticity, re-creation and fakery are amplified by digital technologies and are particularly knotty in heritage contexts, it says.

The possibilities of re-creation come with increased responsibilities that designers and institutions need to take seriously, both for quality and ethical reasons.

Although it says immersive initiatives could challenge power relations in museum and heritage projects, the report notes possible tensions between these approaches and the current emphasis on economic returns within the research and policy landscape.

Co-Author Dr Jenny Kidd told ArtsProfessional that there is a need for more authoritative research and policy that underpins ethical concerns already being expressed in the sector. She says accessibility physical and economic environmental issues, privacy, data ownership, and the de-colonisation of museums all must be considered when introducing and implementing immersive technologies.

It seems a bit incongruous that in institutions where there has been so much effort in recent years to break down these barriers to access that we would reinstate them digitally.

There are further logistical challenges to the uptake and effectiveness of immersion experiences in the museum sector: cost, staff training, collaboration with partners, the usability of any immersive technologies, their sustainability beyond their initial use, and a lack of consensus on how to evaluate their impact can undermine these initiatives, the report says.

It recommends institutions consider how best to make [technology] frictionless, or even invisible. Although issues with internet connectivity and software glitches are likely to improve, such issues remain an unavoidable real-world aspect of many immersive encounters at this time.

The value of immersive experiences in museums can be complex to articulate given the levels of investment needed, it adds.

Kidd said their value will naturally be assessed if they are publicly funded, but remains optimistic about the potential of these interventions.

Theres positive work to be done in this space and I want to see us doing that work.

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'Better evidence' needed on immersive technology | News - ArtsProfessional

The emotional and financial cost of working with outdated technology – Ladders

It really is remarkable to think about how quickly computers made their way from revolutionary, clunky novelty, to sleek ubiquitous workplace companion. Of course, this innovation has come with a nearly equal share of benefits and setbacks some concrete, some indicative of larger issues.

What has been coined as the Technology Gap, or alternatively The Digital Divide or App gap if you like, locates the disparity between citizens that successfully interact with computers or mobile devices on a daily basis and those that do not. All the way back in 1942, political economist Joseph Schumpeter identified the broad implications of this imbalance as the most relevant feature of capitalism; Creative destruction.

With this in mind, our friends over at ZenBusiness conducted a survey to learn about the many complications that employees face when they are forced to work with outdated technology or a dearth of necessary office supplies, writting,

In 2019, the size of computers has shrunk, but their capabilities have exponentially grown. Despite advancements in this technology, though,accessibility continues to be a growing issueas the tech gap widens. As a result of this gap and other issues, many American offices are stuck with outdated technologies, low stocks of supplies, and a lack of integrated communication among teams.

More than 50% of the respondents say that their workplace technology was either moderately or completely outdated. According to the survey, computers caused workers the most difficulty, followed by printers, digital delays, cloud-based programs, cybersecurity, and general internet hiccups.

Employees reported that their workplace technology was moderately or completely outdated, a fairly low standard for workers. Specifically, computers (83.1%) and software (70.5%) were the most commonly outdated technology at work. As computers get older, they might not be able to support the newest iterations of a devices operating system, while outdated software inhibits an office from taking advantage of the latest developments in business technology, the authors explain.

As a consequence the average employee loses about 40 minutes of productivity a day, which further results in a $3,930 annual lost for employers. A routine lack of supplies additionally impacted productivity, leading to a median lost of $1,800 per week. Moreover,93% of workers say that trying to operate outdated technology severely affects their overalljob satisfaction. Thirty three percent of all of the employees surveyed say that they would even look for a new job due to their workplaces outdated technology.

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The emotional and financial cost of working with outdated technology - Ladders

Mind-reading technology is everyone’s next big security nightmare – ZDNet

Technology allowing our thoughts and feelings to be translated into a digital form and shared is already a reality. Brain computer interfaces (BCI) allow us to connect our minds to computers for some limited purposes, and big tech companies including Facebook and many startups want to make this technology commonplace.

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For those of you terrified by the prospect of technology recording and broadcasting your opinions of the boss, your secret fears, or anything else relax.

At least, for now.

BCIs are currently not sophisticated enough to collect such granular information. The data they can gather is more based around measuring the physical movements people want to make or their emotional state. But, as machine-learning algorithms become more sophisticated and BCI hardware becomes more capable, it may be possible to read thoughts with greater precision.

SEE: How to implement AI and machine learning (ZDNet special report) | Download the report as a PDF (TechRepublic)

There are currently two approaches to connecting up the human brain to external computing systems, invasive and non-invasive.

Non-invasive systems read neural signals through the scalp, typically using EEG, the same technologies used by neurologists to interpret the brain's electrical impulses in order to diagnose epilepsy. Non-invasive systems can also transmit information back into the brain with techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation, again already in use by medics.

Invasive systems, meanwhile, involve direct contact between the brain and electrodes, and are being used experimentally to help people that have experienced paralysis to operate prostheses, like robotic limbs, or to aid people with hearing or sight problems to recover some element of the sense they've lost.

Clearly, there are more immediate hazards to invasive systems: surgery always brings risks, particularly where the delicate tissue of the brain is concerned. So given the risks involved, why choose an invasive system over a non-invasive system why put electronics into your grey matter itself? As ever, there's a trade-off to be had. Invasive systems cut out the clutter and make it easier to decode what's going on in the brain.

Non-invasive systems use the likes of EEG to read brain activity, which need millions of neurones acting in sync with each other to give a usable idea of what's going on in the brain by creating a large enough electrical field that can be detected outside the surface of the scalp. But it's a very crude measure.

"It's the equivalent of standing outside a football stadium and trying to work out what's going on in the game just by listening to the cheers. You can get a picture of some of the big events, but it's difficult to get fine-grained information," says Ian Daly, lecturer at the University of Essex's School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering.

Invasive systems, however, are in direct contact with the neurones so even though they may only gather a signal from a hundred neurones, that signal is clear enough to give an insight into the thought process travelling through it.

Take Ian Burkhart, a man with paraplegia who regained some function of arms using a neurosleeve and software by US-based BCI company Battelle, as well as a Utah Array implanted into his brain. Typically, the thought required to move an arm is the job of thousands of neurones; Burkhart can move the Battelle system with just a few tens of neurones after training himself to use the system. "Our brain has 98 billion neurones, the motor cortex has 1.2 billion responsible for hand or limb movements. We are recording from less than 100," says Gaurav Sharma, senior research scientist at Battelle.

SEE: Mind-reading systems: Seven ways brain computer interfaces are already changing the world

To date, most uses of invasive systems have been aimed at helping people with paralysis to move their limbs once again; the greater risks of invasive systems can be worth the payoff for them.

As such, for consumer-tech applications, the short to medium term future of BCIs is likely to be non-invasive.

While non-invasive systems may not match the accuracy of their invasive counterparts, there are new technological avenues opening up that could help researchers level-up non-invasive systems. For example, progress in machine learning is helping scientists better separate the signals from the noise, meaning the accuracy of non-invasive systems will only increase in future.

As well as software improvements, additional scanning types are beginning to be used by BCI systems: focused ultrasound and transcranial direct-current stimulation, for example, might offer a new way to read brain signals.

Others believe that existing non-invasive technologies can deliver the same brain-reading capabilities as invasive systems at least when it comes to motor control.

New York-based CTRL Labs for example uses EMG (electromyography), which reads the electrical activity in skeletal muscle and is used by neurologists to detect nerve performance in the limbs and elsewhere. CTRL Labs makes wrist bands that measure electrical impulses, known as action potentials, in neurones within muscles, and models them in software. When you move your hand, the CTRL Labs system translates that as a hand movement, including its direction, strength and type. It was acquired by Facebook earlier this month.

"We believe that if what you're interested in doing is control you can get all the signal you want and get it more easily through non-invasive means", Adam Berenzweig, head of R&D at CTRL Labs, told ZDNet earlier this month.

"The signal you want is available on surface EMG if you do it well enough, and more than that, the signal is easier to get because in the cortex, all the billions of neurones in the brain are interfering and are noise," says Berenzweig. So if all you're interested in is picking up movement signals from the brain, in most people, non-invasive systems might still do the trick.

SEE: Facebook's 'mind-reading' tech startup deal could completely change how we control computers

While invasive systems will continue to be used by those with the greatest amount to gain from BCIs, such as people with spinal injuries or neurological conditions like Parkinson's disease, broader uptake among consumers is likely to be concentrated on non-invasive systems.

Because reading signals from the brain through the scalp requires direct contact between the skin and the electrodes, it makes unwanted reading of anyone's thoughts at source unlikely and highly noticeable you'd expect most people would be aware of a stranger unexpectedly touching their head, especially with a set of electrodes. Mind reading at source would be too easy to detect.

That said, once the data is collected by BCI and passed on to other software, it's just as secure as any other set of information. In the wake of many, many data breaches it's clear there are no guarantees that sensitive information is better protected than other kinds of data.

Finding out that your information has been accessed by a data breach is never pleasant, but that someone could have been browsing your thoughts patterns or emotional states? It doesn't bear thinking about.

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Mind-reading technology is everyone's next big security nightmare - ZDNet

Chinese snooping technology spreads to nations vulnerable to abuse – Press Herald

BELGRADE, Serbia When hundreds of video cameras with the power to identify and track individuals started appearing in the streets of Belgrade as part of a major surveillance project, some protesters began having second thoughts about joining anti-government demonstrations in the Serbian capital.

Local authorities assert the system, created by Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, helps reduce crime in the city of 2 million. Critics contend it erodes personal freedoms, makes political opponents vulnerable to retribution and even exposes the countrys citizens to snooping by the Chinese government.

The cameras, equipped with facial recognition technology, are being rolled out across hundreds of cities around the world, particularly in poorer countries with weak track records on human rights where Beijing has increased its influence through big business deals. With the United States claiming that Chinese state authorities can get backdoor access to Huawei data, the aggressive rollout is raising concerns about the privacy of millions of people in countries with little power to stand up to China.

The system can be used to trail political opponents, monitor regime critics at any moment, which is completely against the law, said Serbias former commissioner for personal data protection, Rodoljub Sabic.

Groups opposed to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic say police are leaking video of protests to pro-government media, which publish the images, along with the identities of participants. Vucic himself has boasted the police have the capability to count each head at anti-government gatherings. During a recent rally, protesters climbed up a pole and covered a camera lens with duct tape scrawled with the word censored.

Serbian police deny any such abuse of the Huawei system, which will eventually encompass 1,000 cameras in 800 locations throughout Belgrade. Huawei said in a statement that it complies with all applicable laws and regulations in Serbia and anywhere else it does business.

While facial recognition technology is being adopted in many countries, spurring debate over the balance between privacy and safety, the Huawei system has gained extra attention due to accusations that Chinese laws requiring companies to assist in national intelligence work give authorities access to its data.

As a result, some countries are reconsidering using Huawei technology, particularly the superfast 5G networks that are being rolled out later this year.

Still, Huawei, which denies accusations of any Chinese government control, has had no trouble finding customers eager to install its so-called Safe Cities technology, particularly among countries that China has brought closer into its diplomatic and economic orbit.

Besides Serbia, that list includes Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Angola, Laos, Kazakhstan, Kenya and Uganda, as well as a few liberal democracies like Germany, France and Italy. The system is used in some 230 cities, exposing tens of millions of people to its screening.

In a promotional brochure, Huawei says its video surveillance technology can scan over long distances to detect abnormal behavior such as loitering, track the movement of cars and people, calculate crowd size and send alerts to a command center if it detects something suspicious. Local authorities can then act upon the information they receive.

In one case advertised on its website, the company says a suspect in a hit-and-run accident in Belgrade was later discovered in China with the help of face recognition data shared by the Serbian police with their Chinese counterparts.

In view of the cybersecurity accusations leveled by the U.S. and international rights groups against Huawei, the relationship between China and countries that use the companys technology is coming under renewed scrutiny.

Chinas influence in Serbia, a European Union candidate that Beijing views as a gateway to the continent, has significantly expanded in recent years through Beijings global Belt and Road investment programs. The populist Serbian regime has been keen to develop closer ties and the countrys fragile democracy allows Chinas economic interests to grow relatively unchecked, without raising too many questions about human rights, environmental standards or transparency.

Chinas state investment bank has granted billions of dollars in easy-term loans to build coal-powered plants, roads, railroads and bridges. Chinese police officers even help patrol the streets of Belgrade, a security presence officially billed as assisting the growing number of Chinese tourists who visit the city.

Its a similar story in Uganda, where China has invested heavily in infrastructure like highways and a hydropower dam on the Nile.

When longtime President Yoweri Museveni launched a $126 million project to install Huawei facial recognition systems a year ago, he said the cameras were eyes, ears and a nose to fight rampant street crime in the sprawling capital, Kampala. Opposition activists say the real goal is to deter street protesters against an increasingly unpopular government.

The cameras are politically motivated, said Joel Ssenyonyi, a spokesman for the musician and activist known as Bobi Wine who has emerged as a powerful challenger to Museveni. They are not doing this for security. The focus for them is hunting down political opponents.

In neighboring Kenya, the government has also renewed its focus on public safety after a spate of extremist attacks. It has been pushing to register people digitally, including by recording DNA, iris and facial data. To do so, it turned to China, which helped finance the installation of surveillance cameras in Kenya as far back as 2012.

The Kenyan government wants to pool into one database all the information from public and private CCTV cameras, including those with facial recognition technology, a move that activists warn would vastly expand its surveillance powers in a country that does not have comprehensive data protection laws.

A growing number of countries are following Chinas lead in deploying artificial intelligence to track citizens, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The group says at least 75 countries are actively using AI tools such as facial recognition for surveillance and Huawei has sold its systems in 50 of those countries, giving it a far wider reach than competitors such as Japan-based NEC and U.S.-based IBM.

Its very unclear what safeguards are being put in place, said Steven Feldstein, a Carnegie Endowment fellow who authored a report on the issue. Where are images being stored? How long are they being stored for? What kind of accountability procedures will there be? What type of operations will be linked to these surveillance cameras?

Huawei said in an emailed statement that it complies with all applicable laws and regulations in our countries of business. This is the most fundamental principle of our business operations. We are dedicated to bringing people better connectivity, eliminating digital gaps, and promoting the sustainable development of our societies and economies.

In Belgrades bustling downtown Republic Square, high-tech video cameras are pointed in all directions from an office building as pedestrians hurry about their everyday business.

With public authorities disclosing little about how the cameras work, a rights group has set up a tent to ask pedestrians whether they know they are being watched.

We dont want to be in some kind of Big Brother society, said rights activist Ivana Markulic. We are asking: Where are the cameras, where are they hidden, how much did we pay for them and whats going to happen with information collected after this surveillance?

Associated Press writers Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia; Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda; Tom Obula in Nairobi, Kenya; and Matt OBrien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.

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Chinese snooping technology spreads to nations vulnerable to abuse - Press Herald