Category Archives: Technology

Local high school students are taking their interest in computer coding and using it to bring attention to national and global problems.

Tech-savvy students Vincent Cai of Cheshire High School and Rifat Tarafder of CRECs Academy of Science and Innovation in New Britain recently were recognized for their work in developing apps.

Cai won the 2020 Congressional App Challenge for the 5th Congressional District for his app on gerrymandering and Tarafder was recognized by the lieutenant governors COVID-19 computing challenge as a fan favorite for a ninth-grade submission. Hes now a sophomore.

App challenges or hackathons or hackfests are mix of invention conventions and science fairs, where math, computer codes and science are mixed into a finding a solution for a problem or creating a resource.

While many schools offer computer programming classes, Cai and Tarafder learned on their own the particular programming language they used to develop their web-based apps.

For Cai, his idea for an app on gerrymandering came from an eighth-grade report he did on the topic that involves manipulating electoral boundaries to favor one party.

After taking a computer science class his freshman year, he decided to use his skills from the classroom and skills he learned on his own to delve deeper.

His app, The New Maps Project, is a set of online tools with the goal of combating gerrymandering. It allows anyone to use the app and run a redistricting algorithm in seconds, for any state. It also features a visualizer with an interactive map to see the newly drawn districts, as well as a data store with sample data for algorithm and visualizer input.

The New Maps Project is an innovative application with the mission to combat gerrymandering throughout the country. This app could truly assist state legislatures to draw congressional maps in a fair and nonpartisan way, U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes said in a news release.

There are different types of algorithms and many different approaches to redistricting that are put forth and the district could be redrawn based on a variety of approaches, Cai said. This is just another approach to the problem, another algorithm thats put on the table for people to look at as a potential way of redistricting.

The app took two to three months to create. Although he learned the computer language Java in his computer science class, the app is made using JavaScript, a different computer language he learned on his own.

Tarafder got to work on his app even before he knew the lieutenant governors challenge started. The pandemic was still in its early stages in the United States and Tarafder, who lives in Windsor, wanted to get all of the information about COVID-19 in one place: symptoms, number of cases and resources. It took him about a month to create the app. He created a second version of his app in the fall.

Tarafder described the process of creating apps as cool.

I got to create an idea and then I bring it to life, and I like solving problems, Tarafder said.

His interest in computers was piqued by watching his father, Ash, working and fixing computers as an IT specialist.

Tarafder started learning HTML and Java script on his own online when he was in the fourth grade.

It was kind of hard at first because the whole concept of computer programming was new to me so I had some problems learning but I eventually got it and improved my skills, Tarafder recalled.

At the Academy, hes currently taking Advanced Placement computer science principles, and he took a computer coding class his freshmen year. In addition to his classes, he continues to study other computer languages on his own.

Tarafder also created games in eighth and ninth grade that are available for download on Apple and Googles app stores. Hes not able to post his COVID app with Google and Apple because of restrictions on which COVID apps are available for download. Hes also working on another app to help law enforcement by identifying and reporting cyber crimes on the internet.

The app challenges offer a taste for something new as the experience can open up new fields of study for knowledge-craved students wanting to learn more about computers, from the laptop in the bedroom to the smartphone in their hands

These challenges arent systemic change but they can be very impactful, said Matt Mervis from Skills21 at EdAdvance in Litchfield. They can be impactful on kids and their attitudes and where theyve gone.

The states computer science plan says that all state public schools must provide challenging and rigorous programs of study in computer science across all grade levels. A state board prepared computer science standards and implementation guidelines.

From 2014 to 2018, the interest in computer science classes has been growing exponentially, from 2,662 high school students enrolled across the state to 6,653, according to the state department trend data.

Related

Read the original here:

Students harness the power of technology to address larger issues - Waterbury Republican American

If there was any question about the gravity of problems with police use of face surveillance technology, 2020 wasted no time in proving them dangerously real. Thankfully, from Oregon to Massachusetts, local lawmakers responded by banning their local governments' use.

On January 9, after first calling and threatening to arrest him at work, Detroit police officers traveled to nearby Farmington Hills to arrest Robert Williams in front of his wife, children, and neighborsfor a crime he did not commit. He was erroneously connected by face recognition technology that matched an image of Mr. Williams with video from a December 2018 shoplifting incident. Later this year, Detroit police erroneously arrested a second man because of another misidentification by face recognition technology.

For Robert Williams, his family, and millions of Black and brown people throughout the country, the research left the realm of the theoretical and became all too real. Experts at MIT Media Lab, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Georgetown's Center on Privacy and Technology have shown that face recognition technology is riddled with error, especially for people of color. It is one more of a long line of police tools and practices that exacerbate historical bias in the criminal system.

2020 will undoubtedly come to be known as the year of the pandemic. It will also be remembered for unprecedented Black-led protest against police violence and concerns that surveillance of political activity will chill our First Amendment rights. Four cities joined the still-growing list of communities that have stood up for their residents' rights by banning local government use of face recognition. Just days after Mr. Williams' arrest, Cambridge, MAan East Coast research and technology hubbecame the largest East Coast City to ban government use of face recognition technology. It turned out to be a distinction they wouldn't retain long.

In February and March, Chicago and New York City residents and organizers called on local lawmakers to pass their own bans. However, few could have predicted that a month later, organizing, civic engagement, and life as we knew it would change dramatically. As states and municipalities began implementing stay in place orders to suppress an escalating global pandemic, City Councils and other lawmaking bodies adapted to social distancing and remote meetings.

As those of us privileged enough to work from home adjusted to Zoom meetings, protests in the name of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd spread throughout the country.

Calls to end police use of face recognition technology were joined by calls for greater transparency and accountability. Those calls have not yet been answered with a local ban on face recognition in New York City. As New Yorkers continue to push for a ban, one enacted bill will shine the light on NYPD use of all manner of surveillance technology. That light of transparency will inform lawmakers and the public of the breadth and dangers of NYPD's use of face recognition and other privacy-invasive technology. After three years of resistance from the police department and the mayor, New York's City Council passed the POST Act with a veto-proof majority. While lacking the community control measures in stronger surveillance equipment ordinances, the POST Act requires the NYPD to publish surveillance impact and use policies for each of its surveillance technologies. This will end decades of the department's refusal to disclose information and policies about its surveillance arsenal.

TAKE ACTION

End Face Surveillance in your community

Building on the momentum of change driven by political unrest and protestand through the tireless work of local organizers including the ACLU-Massachusettsjust days after New York's City Council passed the POST Act, Boston's City Council took strong action. It voted unanimously to join neighboring Cambridge in protecting their respective residents from police use of face recognition. In the preceding weeks, EFF advocated for, and council members accepted, improvements to the ordinance. One closed a loophole that might have allowed police to ask third parties to collect face recognition evidence for them. Another change provides attorney fees to a person who brings a successful suit against the City for violating the ban.

Not to be outdone by their peers in California and Massachusetts, 2020 was also the year municipal lawmakers in Oregon and Maine banned their own agencies from using the technology. In Portland, Maine, the City Council voted unanimously to ban the technology in August. Then in November, the City's voters passed the first ballot measure prohibiting government use of face recognition.

Across the country, the Portland, Oregon, City Council voted unanimously in September to pass their government ban (as well as a ban on private use of face recognition in places of public accommodation). In the days leading up to the vote, a coalition organized by PDX Privacy, an Electronic Frontier Alliance member, presented local lawmakers with a petition signed by over 150 local business owners, technologists, workers, and residents for an end to government use of face surveillance.

TAKE ACTION

End Face Surveillance in your community

Complimenting the work of local lawmakers, federal lawmakers are stepping forward. Senators Jeff Merkley and Jeff Markey), and Representatives Ayanna Pressley, Pramila Jayapal, Rashida Tlaib, and Yvette Clarke introduced the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act of 2020 (S.4084/H.R.7356). If passed, it would ban federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Customs and Border Patrol from using face recognition to track and identify (and misidentify) millions of U.S. residents and travelers. The act would also withhold certain federal funding from local and state governments that use face recognition.

While some high-profile vendors this year committed to pressing pause on the sale of face recognition technology to law enforcement, 2020 was also a year where the public became much more familiar with how predatory the industry can be. Thus, through our About Face campaign and work of local allies, EFF will continue to support the movement to ban all government use of face recognition technology.

With a new class of recently elected lawmakers poised to take office in the coming weeks, now is the time to reach out to your local city council, board of supervisors, and state and federal representatives. Tell them to stand with you in ending government use of face recognition, a dangerous technology with a proven ability to chill essential freedoms and amplify systemic bias.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2020.

See the article here:

Banning Government Use of Face Recognition Technology: 2020 Year in Review - EFF

By Sophie Shulman

Most Israeli tech entrepreneurs if asked what is your dream? would answer with two words going public. However, statistics suggest that most Israeli tech companies are sold before they are big enough to reach Wall Street. This year, that figure changed and 2020 may be remembered as the year that convinced the Israeli tech scene that it is mature enough to go it alone.

It was the result of necessity- the global merger and acquisition market came grinding to a halt and any big deals that were completed were ones that had been initiated prior to the pandemic or those that resulted in a consolidation of two companies active in the same field. The sharp drop in M&As while money kept flowing in from the private market, mostly from venture capital, allowed Israeli tech companies to cross the chasm and reach the size and maturity level required to go public in New York at a valuation that would draw in the large underwriters and as a result, spark the interest of investors. It is an excellent development for Israel, which no longer has to dream of a local Nokia and can instead produce a series of such companies, only better. Covid-19 primed the international stock markets to Israeli tech companies and unicorns that are galloping towards their IPOs. JFrog and Lemonade are two companies that have already undergone successful IPOs, but the wave of new ones will likely be larger, with companies like SimilarWeb, Taboola, Monday, and more. These new issuers will have to work hard to justify the enormous valuations that investors are willing to grant them, now that they can no longer hide behind the funding of generous buyers.

By Amit Kling

The gaming industry broke its fair share of records in 2020, including unprecedented earnings reaching $175 billion. Covid-19 increased profits and accelerated growth in an industry that has been expanding every year and would likely have registered impressive figures even if the pandemic hadnt broken out. But the numbers fail to disclose the true revolution that took place in the industry this year, and it came together in a single event that revealed the shifting public attitude to the sector. In March, the World Health Organization issued a statement in which it recommended gaming as a safe activity for the coronavirus era. The WHO used the hashtag #PlayApartTogether as part of its call to unite people around the world while also asking them to keep their distance.

It wouldnt be so dramatic had the same organization, several months prior, not issued a report that classified addiction to video games as a mental disturbance. Naturally in the world of gaming, just as in any pastime, there are unhealthy and addictive behaviors, but the reports framing led to a tidal wave of negative coverage that threatened to send gaming back in time. Nowadays, many gamers are raising families of their own, and even in homes where it used to be a childrens activity, being in lockdown together led to an increase in family playtime. It is an ongoing process that combines with other trends in the field, such as playing in groups of friends instead of with strangers on the internet, which was sparked by runaway hits like Fortnite and Among Us. On the other end, services like Discord and Switch enable better communication and more closeness among gamers, instead of just competition.

Israels tech sector didnt merely survive the Covid-19 outbreak, it actually benefited from it. Despite the gloomy predictions of the spring, 2020 saw another record year for raising capital, with nearly $10 billion flowing into Israeli companies. As a result, hundreds of companies are vigorously recruiting new employees, including companies that were laying off teams or sending employees on unpaid leave at the start of the crisis. The fiscal parameters, however, dont reflectand even hide the true failure of the sector.

Israeli tech companies set their sights on the foreign market from day one: The small and Hebrew speaking Israeli market is insufficient to build truly large companies, and often is even neglected as a testing ground in the development stages. Local companies tend to ignore the Israeli reality and the Israeli users often get left behind. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the best example for that was the eCommerce sector, in which despite all the local companies specializing in distribution, logistics, and payments, Israel was at least a decade behind the rest of the world. Ignoring the local userbase was internalized to such a degree that even the acute need for technological solutions in light of the pandemic, didnt cause Israeli companies to stick their heads out of the window.

The absurd result of this, for example, is that the average tech industry employee saw their childrens education system crumble, with the state unable to offer a better alternative to Zoom. It wasnt only a failure of the tech sector, however. The government also sinned by ignoring its most valuable resource and failing to take advantage of the local innovation and development capabilities to come up with solutions. Neither side is taking accountability either. The tech industry will continue to recruit new employees and pay them exorbitant salaries, but it appears this engine has already left the station, leaving the train behind, with even an event like a global pandemic incapable of getting it to recalculate its course.

Headlines about scientific breakthroughs are a bit like headlines about the climate crisis. Everyone realizes that they have to do with something that is significant, but without lacking an immediate impact on peoples lives, they scroll onwards. That was the case until now with artificial intelligence technology. Even though nearly every technological development in the past decade makes use of it, it is present in algorithmic calculations that are hidden from the eye.

This year all that changed when both the event and its impact hit us head-on and we all suddenly became experts in epidemiology, genetics, and the chemistry of vaccines. It was also the year of the scientists, who were granted a rare opportunity to publicly apply all the theories and developments that had previously been hidden away in the lab. The vaccines were the epitome of this, with scientific achievements in things like genetic mapping, illustrating as clearly as can be, what machine learning is, and what can be done with AI.

The mapping of the human genome enabled the rapid deciphering of the viruss structure, with knowledge of its genetic makeup spreading from China to the world even faster than the virus itself.

Machine learning, which up until now was mostly a necessary buzzword in startup companies investor presentations, was what enabled the full sequencing of the viruss structure and AI, which enabled rapid analysis of massive databases and the reaching of conclusions about them, was what helped scientists realize that Covid-19 was similar to SARS, for which a basis for a vaccine was already in existence.

2020 didnt only turn theories into practice, it also harnessed technology into public service. The geeks, computer nerds, and mad scientists, who for years had been describing horrific scenarios about deadly virus outbreaks proved they could do more than just warn about them, they could beat them.

The early days of the pandemic were characterized by the reassessment of work plans, not only for medical crews but for another type of employees: delivery people, drivers, cashiers, shelf stockers, and warehouse operators. They were the unsung and unrewarded heroes of the stay-at-home public. Most of them are manual laborers that earn far too little, lack employment security and sometimes basic rights. The spotlight cast on them and the gratitude they received seemed for a moment like it could be leveraged to improving work conditions. Amazon, for example, granted a $2 an hour hazard bonus and the ridesharing companies gave their drivers paid sick days. Those benefits, however, were revoked when it turned out the pandemic would not be a fleeting event and the appreciation was replaced by the disparaging mantra of nobody is forcing you to work there.

Those companies are currently benefiting from a surge of newly unemployed. At Wolt Israel, for example, there is a waiting list of thousands of job seekers and Amazon recruited nearly half a million people for its logistics centers in the last six months. Participants in the gig economy have been conducting legal battles to achieve basic conditions for years, so far with little success. Giant companies will try to take advantage of the labor market to reverse even those gains. The degree to which they are successful has a lot to do with their clients awareness and solidarity.

Digital healthcare services, online shopping, remote learning, and work from home all received a boost from the Covid-19 pandemic and offered a glimpse into what life should look like in the upcoming decade. But having technology be the solution for all of our current problems blinded us to the fact that access to the digital tools is not equally distributed, between countries, cities, and even families.

Investing in technology supposedly promises progress, improvement, and even equality, but progress has never been distributed uniformly. Covid-19 did not expose a failure in the technological infrastructure, but its success was only limited. Since the outbreak, technology has become a tool that entrenches inequality. Only those with a reliable internet connection could transition quickly to work from home; only families with several computers could enable their children to stay in school; and only those who are technologically orientated could take advantage of remote healthcare services or digital shopping for basic commodities. The rest suffered a double blow both from the pandemic itself and from the transition to the digital world. It will take years to make up the gaps that were opened in 2020.

The lawyers of the large tech companies will be spending much of the upcoming years in court. 2020 ended with a slew of lawsuits filed against Google and Facebook by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FTC, and they are likely only the beginning. The problem is, that these lawsuits are arriving a decade too late.

Regulators sat off to the side while Google was playing around with its search engine in order to harm its competitors and Facebook acquired companies for vast sums in order to prevent competition (in the case of Google they continued doing so years after the company was fined for it by the European Union). Google beat its competitors into submission and Facebook effectively destroyed any significant competition, and both are now planning their next steps to solidify their positions. While the regulators are battling the wars of the past, Facebook and Google are already planning the next war.

Cyberattacks became a major global threat amid the covid-19 pandemic. The statistics are clear. In 2009, there were 12.4 million malware attacks, in 2019 that number grew to 812 million, and according to FBI assessments, 2020 will have ended with that number tripling under the auspices of the coronavirus pandemic. The damage? $6 trillion in 2021 according to conservative estimates. The cause for the steep increase in attacks is not due to a lack of protection tools. The U.S. Government, for example, dedicates $15 billion a year to cyber defense. It is not sufficient, however, to neutralize the vulnerabilities caused by human error. The most popular passwords are still Password or 123456 resulting in 95% of breaches attributed to mistakes caused by humans.

Cyber has become an excellent way to wage wars under the shadow of darkness. The underlying assumption is that every country on the planet operates spyware and carries out online attacks, at varying volumes and degrees of success. Its not only Donald Trumps Cyber Command, the Kremlins battalions of hackers, or Chinas army of coders, every power is in possession of its own cyber corp, even it is based on purchasing of attack software from private industry. The result is a cyberwar of all against all, in which everyone is both an attacker and defender, and one of the new challenges is determining the scale of the response.

It is hard to determine where the border runs when states have yet to decide what that border looks like. One thing that is certain is that the number of attacks will continue growing, with only a small portion of them being exposed to the public.

Excerpt from:

Technology may have helped us survive Covid-19, but at what cost? - CTech

The fish simply wouldn't have anywhere to hide as the FISH-LO-K-TOR peeled back the mysteries of a lake. Or so the thinking went.

"And then when the underwater cameras came out in the 1990s, there were discussions about whether the Legislature should make them illegal. People said those were going to make catching fish too easy and they were going to ruin fishing," said Drewes, now a regional fisheries manager for the DNR based in Bemidji.

To date very little fishing technology has been outlawed and, while there are myriad challenges to maintaining quality fish populations in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota lakes, there is yet to be a gadget that's single-handedly "ruined" fishing.

As another ice fishing season is underway in the Upper Midwest, let the discussions begin anew of how the latest gizmo or fancy creature comfort is making the once frigid pursuit of hardwater angling too easy.

Ice fishermen have never had it so good. From pull-behind wheel houses that are warmed to 70 degrees and feature large flat-screen TVs and kitchenettes, to sonar that allows anglers to see sideways in a 360-degree circle, to tracked vehicles that allow access to all but the most remote lakes, to lightweight battery-powered augers that start with the flick of a switch instead of the yank of a rope and a cloud of exhaust this isn't your great-grandpa's winter pastime anymore.

And don't forget about cell phones and social media, which spread the word about hot bites in seconds.

RELATED:

"In North Dakota, accessing some of our winter fisheries has changed. With SnoBears and other tracked vehicles that can go just about anywhere, people are getting to some of these more remote lakes that used to maybe only get pressured seven out of 10 years. The other three years access would be close to zero because of deep snow," said North Dakota Game and Fish Department fisheries division chief Greg Power. "Now anglers can get to them every year and they are good at what they do. They find fish and they catch fish."

The question is whether fish populations can withstand the technological onslaught.

This northern pike may look huge on a big-screen monitor but in reality it's only about 28 inches long. It was captured on one of Gary Rutherford's underwater cameras in January 2019. Live video shows how often fish come in to check out a lure but don't bite. John Myers / Forum News Service

"Every time something new comes out, every few years, it seems like we go through this," said outdoors media personality Jason Mitchell, who got his start guiding on Devils Lake, N.D. "Underwater cameras. Should we make them illegal? Vexilars. Should we make them illegal? Now it's the-side-scan sonars. Should we make them illegal?

"All I know is that at the end of the day, you can't make fish bite."

Anglers can, however, find fish under the ice much easier. And once anglers find the fish, they can attempt to catch them for much longer periods of time than the old days due to being able to stay warm and dry. Aside from the cabin-like wheeled houses, the quality of portable flip-over houses and clothing have advanced exponentially in the last couple of decades.

"Finding fish used to be the big component of the chase. Not so much anymore. There's no doubt technology has put the fish at a disadvantage," said Jim Wolters, a DNR area fisheries chief in Fergus Falls. "In the winter, anglers have the ability to sit on fish 24/7. They might not be biting now, but they'll surely bite eventually."

The concern biologically is over-harvest generally and harvesting of bigger fish specifically. On lakes that don't have restrictive bag limits or size restrictions, panfish like bluegills and crappies are particularly susceptible to anglers taking too many big fish. That can leave populations of smaller fish that, as a matter of survival, begin to sexually mature at a younger age. That creates a cycle of stunted fish.

That's where fisheries science and angler ethics can play a role in blunting the efficiency of technology. State game and fish agencies can lower limits or tighten size restrictions to protect certain species of fish in specific lakes, and fishermen can practice selective harvest taking only enough fish for a meal or two and returning the rest to the water.

"The difference I see is that once anglers learn how to use the technology properly, they are so much more efficient. Instead of having to drill 40 holes to find fish, they only have to drill four. Being that efficient, that's when they can really do some damage to fish populations," said Tony Mariotti, a member of Clam Corp.'s Ice Team from Detroit Lakes, Minn. "That's why I think it's important for the DNR to really keep an eye on those lakes that could potentially be hurt by overharvest. They may have to make some adjustments."

While the NDGF rarely changes limits in the state's approximately 420 lakes, it does adjust stocking numbers as needed. In Minnesota, the DNR is currently implementing its Quality Bluegill Initiative in dozens of lakes statewide in hopes that smaller bag limits will help grow bigger sunfish. In recent decades, the state has moved to lake-by-lake management instead of statewide mandates.

Acceptance of reduced limits is growing. Drewes said the QBI had about 85% public support.

"If we would have proposed these changes 20 years ago, we would've been run out of town," he said.

"We've been trying to teach about ethics, catch and release, selective harvest. That's being passed down among anglers now, too, and that's different than years ago," Wolters said. "It used to be people would go out and fill a pail every time they went fishing. Now the discussion is that it's OK to take some fish home, but is it OK to take 20 bluegills or 10 crappies every time out?"

Mitchell said one thing is certain: Technology is not going to stop advancing. It wasn't that long ago when winter anglers were using wooden sticks, braided line and hand augers. At one time, small spinning reels spooled with monofilament line was cutting edge for ice fishermen. Now you can use an underwater camera and a big-screen TV to watch fish below you.

"I think the new technology is exciting because there is always something cool coming out," Mitchell said. "I get excited because it's an opportunity to learn and grow. What's hot today will seem quaint in five years. That's the way it's always been."

See the rest here:

As ice fishing gets easier because of technology, can fish withstand the onslaught? - Duluth News Tribune

In a world of remote-learning, Zoom calls, and streaming, do the benefits out weigh the risks?

With technology easily accessible, students oftentimes find themselves multitasking homework and entertainment.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, school has moved online for many students. This means more time sitting and staring at a screen. In addition to school, teenagers are also spending a significant amount of time socializing, playing games, and shopping virtually. This over-use of technology is negatively impacting the mental and physical health of young people across the country, as well as right here at Becton.

Bectons Student Assistance Coordinator, Mr. Connor Wills stresses that Once people become 25-27 years of age, their brain stops developing and it is hard to change habits and learn new skills. It is for this reason that children need to learn how to manage their emotions and not become too dependent on technology to self-regulate.

How technology is used depends on some factors and their purpose. While computers are normally used during class time, cell phones are used to keep in touch with friends, and television is used to help the children and their families unwind. According to Science Daily, 1 in 5 young people regularly wake up in the night to send or check messages on social media. Teenagers that do this are three times more likely to be tired at school, compared to those who do not log on a night.

Students that do not log on at night are also much happier. Studies have shown that females are more likely to log onto their social media accounts than boys leading to emotional issues, depression, and even suicide. Citing a study from 2015, Jamie Zelazny, Ph.D., RN, and assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine explains that Teens who reported using social media sites more than 2 hours a day were much more likely to report poor mental health outcomes like distress and suicidal ideation.

Unfortunately, these habits tend to form at a much younger age. The American Association of Pediatrics states that there should be avoidance of screens for children under 18 months (except for video-chatting), and limits of 1 hour per day of high-quality programming for children up to the age of 5.

Furthermore, excessive technology use also harms academic performance. Guidance Counselor, Mrs. Victoria DeSantis, expresses, More children feel isolated, lonely, and they become apathetic about their studies when they spend excessive amounts time on the electronics. Moving forward, when electronics are present, children develop the habit of switching between tasks. Michael Rich, the Executive Director of the Center of Media and Child Health in Boston states, Childrens brains get rewarded for jumping to the next task rather than staying on task. Multitasking can be beneficial, but certainly not when it distracts students from what is truly important. When a computer is near, it may serve as a distraction, even if the initial intent was for educational purposes.

Jacob L. Vigdor, an economics professor at Duke University, states when left to themselves, children most often used home computers for entertainment instead of learning. This means that adults must supervise their children to ensure that technology is being used for the right reasons. Moreover, childrens ability to manage emotions and self-esteem is also affected by technology. Oftentimes, children resort to technology when they feel upset or stressed out.

According to Mr. Wills, Electronics provide us with immediate gratification and this ultimately results in increased anxiety and depression. He recommends for students to go outside and connect with nature, by hiking or meditating, because using technology to escape can eventually become addictive.

Lastly, the physical health of children is also greatly affected. When children are spending more time using their electronics, they are also spending more time sitting and being mostly still. This can lead to long term problems, such as obesity and/or cardiovascular diseases. Physical Education teacher, Ms. Jessica ODriscoll stresses the importance of physical health when she states, you need your health to do anything and achieve anything. People who are healthy and in shape can fight off diseases and viruses better than those that have health issues and have not taken care of their bodies. Ms. ODriscoll advises students to go outside for a walk or run, if they feel uncomfortable doing this, they can also use their stairs.

With the pandemic, many activity options are limited, but young people need to be active indoors or outdoors rather than opting for video games and/or television. Exposure to blue and blue-green light (used in electronics), counteracts the melatonin creating process in the pineal gland. Melatonin is a hormone that helps people fall asleep at night. Mr. Wills explains, The worst time to use electronics is before bed. Childrens sleep tends to be more affected when they are exposed to blue light before sleep, compared to adults. The blue and blue-green light also bad for the eyes because it is known to cause nearsightedness, blindness, and eye strain. As a result, blue-light blocking glasses have become

popular and are available through many retailers.

Children have technology all around them and it is negatively impacting their mental health, physical health, and performance. Even electronics, whose primary purpose is for education, end up being a distraction to many young people. Using an electronic device requires children to be sitting, mostly still, and with education being forced into this sphere as a result of Covid-19, teens need to find ways to become more physically active and take a break from technology. Oftentimes they opt to play video games or binge-watch a Netflix show, rather than go outside for a jog. As expressed by Mr. Wills, technology needs to be used only when necessary and when used often as an escape, can become addictive. He advises students to notice how you feel and to be social, but be social in person.

Read more from the original source:

The Effects of Technology on Teens - Cat's Eye View

By 2021, according to various Silicon Valley luminaries, bandwagoning politicians and leading cab firms in recent years, self-driving cars would have long been crossing the US, started filing along Britains motorways and be all set to provide robotaxis in London.

1 January has not, however, brought a driverless revolution. Indeed in the last weeks of 2020 Uber, one of the biggest players and supposed beneficiaries, decided to park its plans for self-driving taxis, selling off its autonomous division to Aurora in a deal worth about $4bn (3bn) roughly half what it was valued at in 2019.

The decision did not, Ubers chief executive protested, mean the company no longer believed in self-driving vehicles. Few technologies hold as much promise to improve peoples lives with safe, accessible, and environmentally friendly transportation, Dara Khosrowshahi said. But more people might now take that promise with a pinch of salt.

Prof Nick Reed, a transport consultant who ran UK self-driving trials, says: The perspectives have changed since 2015, when it was probably peak hype. Reality is setting in about the challenges and complexity.

Automated driving, says Reed, could still happen in the next five years on highways with clearly marked lanes, limited to motorised vehicles all going in the same direction. Widespread use in cities remains some way further out, he says: But the benefits are still there.

The most touted benefit is safety, with human error blamed for more than 90% of road accidents. Proponents also say autonomous cars would be more efficient and reduce congestion.

Looking back, Reed says the technology worked people had the sense, it does the right thing most of the time, we are 90% of the way there. But it is that last bit which is the toughest. Being able reliably to do the right thing every single time, whether its raining, snowing, fog, is a bigger challenge than anticipated.

Waymo, the Google spin-off that has led the field, could be a case in point: having quickly wowed the world with footage of self-driving cars, the subsequent steps have appeared small.

In October last year it announced the public could now hail fully driverless taxis, in the near term without a safety driver in any car although the range remains limited to the sunny suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, whose every centimetre has been mapped by Waymo computers.

Elsewhere, robotaxis have stalled. Like Uber, the cab firm Addison Lee had staked out bold ambitions, signing up with the UK autonomy pioneer Oxbotica in 2018 to get robotaxis into London by 2021.

That deal was quietly dropped in March last year, under new ownership. Addison Lees chief executive, Liam Griffin, said: Driverless cars are best left to the OEMs [manufacturers], and dont form part of our current plans.

The launch of an autonomous taxi service by Ford has also been postponed at least a year to 2022 because of the pandemic.

Globally, Covid-19 has delayed trials and launches of connected and automated vehicles, says Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

Regulatory changes could still allow developments such as Automated Lane Keeping Systems being rolled out in 2021 across everyday cars.

ALKS is the first version of automated driving technology which could prevent some 47,000 serious accidents over the next decade, while creating up to 420,000 new jobs, Hawes said.

The system could let the car take control on UK motorways thisyear although insurers are trying to talk the government out of giving the go-ahead.

Alexandra Smyth, who leads on autonomous systems at the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: Theres lots of progress and interesting developments with regulations and codes of practice all important components that sit alongside the technology itself. But realistically there are still going to be errors and things that dont perform as we hoped. Public trust will be one of the major hurdles.

Fears were stoked after Ubers self-driving car killed a pedestrian in Arizona in 2018. And despite Elon Musks continuing bold claims for Tesla, and reports that Apple is still secretly pushing to develop a personal autonomous vehicle by 2024, the law is unlikely to permit drivers to relinquish the wheel soon.

According to Christian Wolmar, the author of Driverless Cars: On a Road to Nowhere?, problems such as social acceptance, cybersecurity and cost have never been addressed.

He says: People do not want to replace the car outside the front door with an app its just not a viable concept. I think more and more people are sceptical of the model that well all be in robocars soon. Instead, the industry is now talking about specific uses.

If Oxboticas Paul Newman, one of the Oxford University professors pioneering Britains autonomous industry, has any doubts over the long term, he is not showing it although he says the level of autonomy where occasionally there might be a remote assist is a far more achievable ambition than a world where the machines can entirely get on with it.

Oxbotica is running a fleet of autonomous Ford Mondeos on public roads in a trial in Oxford but the technological progress, he says, is not about robotaxis: Its purely about the software, its agnostic about the vehicles.

The driverless car world, he says, is a great moonshot: cars are a huge market but also the hardest to transform, long after autonomous mining or rail or shuttle services are in place.

Newman compares the progress with mobiles phones, recalling the first he saw, wielded by Danny Glover in the 1987 film Lethal Weapon, which was the size of a small suitcase.

Is a future of driverless cars coming? Assuredly as mobile phones. This is the normal cycle that technology goes through. Were still moving along that graph, he said.

Weve gone through the flashy stage, when weve said its six months away Now weve got engineers saying this is properly hard.

Continue reading here:

'Peak hype': why the driverless car revolution has stalled - The Guardian

Credit: ZDNet

The predictions business seems more precarious than usual this year. As 2020 has shown quite clearly, attempting to predict anything makes zero sense any more. However, I'm not done with dusting off my crystal ball and trying to ascertain which technologies -- announced and not -- are likely to get their days in the Redmond sun in the coming year.

I've settled on five Microsoft areas that I'll be watching closely in the new year. I'm choosing these five because I think they'll have the biggest potential impact on business users in 2021. (I'm sure there are also a number of Microsoft gaming announcements that could be big in 2021, but -- happily -- that's outside my main focus here on ZDNet.)

My five, in no particular order:

MetaOS for the Mobile Masses

Microsoft has an evolving strategy and foundational layer in the Microsoft 365 cloud space which is somewhat better known internally than externally. That initiative is known as "Meta OS" (and also sometimes as "Taos").

MetaOS is meant to be a single mobile platform that provides a consistent set of work and play services across devices. It's not an OS the way Windows is an OS, but it does consist of a number of layers or tiers, including the Office substrate and Microsoft Graph, and an application model that includes work Microsoft is doing around Fluid Framework (its fast co-authoring and object embedding tech); Power Apps and Visual Studio dev tools.

I think in 2021 we'll hear more about how Microsoft is looking at apps as a set of single-task products and services (think Planner, Stream, Tasks, Lists, Files, Whiteboard, Notes). Fluid Framework plays a big role here. This strategy and its rollout could have big implications for developers, consumers and firstline workers.

Universal Search: Information at Your Fingertips Revisited

Microsoft founder Bill Gates had a vision of enabling users to have information come to them instead of having to seek it out. His Comdex 1990 keynote was even titled "Information at Your Fingertips." Decades later, Microsoft is finally getting closer to making this idea a reality via its universal search technology.

From 2018 to 2020, Microsoft teams were putting the pieces in place for a unified search experience across Windows, Edge and its existing Office apps. Microsoft Search is the company's unified Intranet search offering, meant to exist alongside Bing, Microsoft's web search technology.

Microsoft Search and the underlying Microsoft Graph API are meant to help make sense of users' work life (documents, the entities, the people they work with regularly, etc.). Bing's main focus is to provide an understanding of the world outside an organization, with acronym and entity extraction, machine reading comprehension, computer vision and other tools and technologies, officials say.

In 2021, Microsoft will be actively seeking ways to get more users to "turn on" unified search and use it to get work results wherever they are -- in an Office app, in the new Edge browser, or even inside Bing. Unified search dovetails nicely with Project Cortex, Microsoft's knowledge-management technologies. And, like MetaOS, unified search is meant to be people-centric and not tied to any particular device.

The 'Intelligent Edge': More Than Just IoT

Microsoft was the first of the major cloud vendors to embrace hybrid. Although some officials called out PCs and servers as examples of "intelligent edge" devices, Microsoft's embrace of that definition will likely become more prominent in 2021 and beyond.

When many think of "edge" devices, they immediately think of Internet of Things (IoT) products. But Microsoft has been growing its portfolio of what constitutes an edge device over the past couple of years. Ruggedized PCs like Azure Stack Edge Pro and Pro R, are edge devices. Any kind of device with onboard AI-processing capabilities qualifies as an intelligent edge device. Even the recently announced Azure Modular Datacenters -- which are datacenters inside shipping containers which can operate without Internet connections, intermittently connected and/or permanently connected via satellite -- also are edge devices.

Microsoft has yet to announce its AWS Outposts competitor, which is codenamed "Fiji." I'm expecting this could be a 2021 announcement. Fiji is meant to provide users with the ability to run Azure as a local cloud, managed by public Azure and delivered in the form of racks of servers provided by Microsoft directly to users. Fiji also fits into the Microsoft intelligent edge family.

Cloud PC: Desktop Virtualization as a Flat-Rate Service

Microsoft is expected to announce in the spring of 2021 its Cloud PC desktop-as-a-service offering. Cloud PC, codenamed "Deschutes," is built on top of the existing Windows Virtual Desktop service. But unlike WVD, Cloud PC will be a flat-rate subscription service, not a consumption-priced service.

Cloud PC will be an option for customers who want to use their own Windows PCs made by Microsoft and/or other PC makers basically like thin clients, with Windows, Office and potentially other software delivered virtually by Microsoft. It may debut alongside Windows 10X, providing the first batch of 10X users a way to run their existing Win32 apps (since the first version of 10X won't include Win32 container support, our sources say).

Depending on how the various Cloud PC plans are priced, this service potentially could become a strong member of the Microsoft 365/commercial cloud stable of services.

Windows 10X: Another Run at Chromebook Compete

Since Chief Device Officer Panos Panay took over more of the Windows team earlier this year, Microsoft's message is Windows is BACK, baby! In 2021, Panay and team are hoping to prove the company has decided to invest more in making Windows great (again?) with a variety of efforts, including the 21H2 "Sun Valley" UI refresh; more work to makeWindows 10 on ARM viable; and the launch of Windows 10X, a new Windows 10 variant meant to be simpler, cleaner and more manageable.

Microsoft's original plan was for 10X to debut as the OS for dual-screen and foldable Windows devices. The new, post-COVID plan calls for 10X to debut on new single-screen PCs, including clamshell laptops and 2-in-1s, among other form factors. Microsoft officials publicly deny that 10X is the company's latest attempt to compete with Chromebooks, but sources say this is definitely the sweet spot for 10X devices. Their initial target markets include education and firstline workers -- the same customer groups on which Microsoft focused with Windows 10 in S Mode (and which officials also refused to say publicly was a Chromebook compete effort).

Microsoft officials have not made 10X available externally to Windows Insider testers. Word is 10X will only be available on brand-new (not for existing) PCs and could begin shipping on those devices starting this spring. Windows 10X is expected to run on Intel-based PCs at launch, but Microsoft has been testing 10X internally on Arm devices, sources say, so maybe it also will be available on new Arm-based devices at some point in the future.

See the original post:

Five Microsoft technologies to watch in 2021 - ZDNet

Author Nathan Watson - January 1, 2021January 1, 2021Kimberly OLoughlin, CEO, Therapy Brands. Photo via Analytics Insight

In their December 30, 2020 issue, Analytics Insight named Birmingham-based Therapy Brands CEO Kimberly OLoughlin among their list of The 100 Most Powerful Women In Technology 2020. Heres what we learned about Kimberly and Therapy Brands.

According to Analytics Insight, although the information technology industry is rapidly growing, it still lags when it comes to women in technology. Although there are many factors at play, Analytics Insight noted that a lack of role models in the industry is a challenge for women looking to pursue a career in the tech world.

In an effort to remedy that issue, Analytics Insight put together a list of exemplary women that have broken the glass ceiling to become the top in their profession and organization.

Click here to view the full list of The 100 Most Powerful Women In Technology 2020.

Among Analytics Insights list of influential women in tech is Kimberly OLoughlin, CEO of Birmingham-based Therapy Brands. Kimberly first joined the Therapy Brands team in February 2020. Before serving as CEO of Therapy Brands, she served as President of Greenway Health and helped the company win the KLAS Most Improved Ambulatory EHR not once but TWICE for Revenue Cycle Managementmeaning Therapy Brands is in good hands.

In fact, Analytics Insight was so impressed with Kimberly that they decided to feature her in a full article. Click here to read Kimberly OLoughlin: Empowering Yourself and Your Business For Success.

Therapy Brands: Website | Facebook | LinkedIn

In an era of social distancing and Zoom calls, retaining access to your preferred therapist can be challenging. While practicing therapists have been shifting their business to telehealth, Therapy Brands has been there to help ease the transition with their collection of practice management tips, telehealth software and data collection tools.

In fact, since the start of COVID-19, Therapy Brands has seen a 4300% increasein telehealth use.

I believe that initiative is one of the most important factors in a persons success. Great leaders find a way to overcome obstacles and seize opportunities!

We are thrilled to see Birmingham executives get national recognition for their hard workand we cant wait to see what theyll accomplish in 2021!

Related

Here is the original post:

Birmingham CEO named in "100 Most Powerful Women In Technology 2020" - Bham Now

EXCEPT for some defiant holdouts, most Muslims have come to accept the printing press, loudspeaker, weather forecasts, cameras and television, blood transfusions, organ transplants, and in-vitro fertilisation. Earlier fears that technology will destroy their faith are disappearing. Although religious extremists have killed polio vaccine workers by the dozens, Pakistanis are likely to accept the Covid vaccine more easily than Americans. This is progress.

Technology for religious rituals is also becoming popular. For example, you may buy a small gadget called the SalatCard which uses proximity sensors to count the number of rakats performed during prayers. Also available online is an environmentally friendly wuzu (ablution) machine using visual sensors. Responding to public complaints of muezzins with rasping voices or bad pronunciations, Egypts government is carrying out an experimental airing in 113 mosques of Cairo where a computer will initiate the standardised azan at exact times. A few years ago multiple fatwas would have lambasted such innovations. But not anymore.

What of science, the fount of technology? Consuming technology does not, of course, resolve conflicts between science and religion. Nor does it necessarily mean that science as a way of looking at the world is gaining ascendancy. The latter motivated the 2020 Task Force Report on Culture of Science in the Islamic World. Led by Prof Nidhal Guessoum (Sharjah) and Dr. Moneef Zoubi (Jordan), with input from Dr Athar Osama (Pakistan), their online survey gives some hints.

At one level the results are encouraging. Their survey of 3,500 respondents, chosen mostly from Arab countries and Pakistan, shows knowledge of basic scientific facts as slightly better than in developed countries. The authors concede that this surprising result is probably because relatively educated and internet-savvy respondents were chosen. Still, one hopes that this is not too inaccurate.

Without a culture of science Muslims will continue consuming technology without producing much.

But even if true, knowing facts about science is unconnected with having a scientific mindset. The difference is like that between a USB memory stick (where you dump data) and a CPU chip (which is the decision-making brain of your laptop or smartphone). The first is passive, relatively simple and cheap. The second is active, extremely complex and costly.

Correspondingly, the traditional mindset takes knowledge to be a corpus of eternal verities to be acquired, stockpiled, disseminated, understood and applied but not modified or transformed. The scientific mindset, on the other hand, involves ideas of forming, testing and, if necessary, abandoning hypotheses if they dont work. Analytical reasoning and creativity is important, simple memorisation is not.

Going through the report, it is unclear to me whether the questions asked and the answers received have helped us understand whether Muslims are moving towards a scientific worldview. Perhaps the organisers thought that asking difficult questions upfront is too dangerous. But the strong emphasis they place upon freedom, openness and diversity as a condition for nurturing science is praiseworthy.

Heres why science and developing a scientific mindset is so difficult and alien. Humans are never completely comfortable with science because it is not commonsense. In our daily lives one sometimes has to struggle against science. As children we learned that actually its the earth that moves and yet we still speak of the sun rising and setting!

Another example: heavier things fall faster, right? This is so obviously true that nobody tested it until Galileo showed 400 years ago that this is wrong. Wouldnt it be so much nicer if the laws of physics and biology lined up with our nave intuition and religious beliefs? Or if Darwin was wrong and living things didnt evolve through random mutation? Unfortunately, science is chock-full of awkward facts. Getting to the truth takes a lot of work. And so you have to be very thorough and very curious.

Historically, lack of curiosity is why Muslim civilisations were ultimately defeated. After the Arab Golden Age petered out, the spirit of science also died. The 17th-century Ottoman sultans were rich enough to hire technologists from Europe to build ships and cannons (there were no Chinese then) but they could not produce their own experts from the ulema-dominated educational system. And when the British East India Company brought inventions and products from an England humming with new scientific ideas, the Mughals simply paid cash for them. They never asked what makes the gadgets work or even how they could be duplicated.

Without a scientific culture, a country can only consume and trade. Pakistan functions as a nation of shopkeepers, property dealers, managers, hoteliers, accountants, bankers, soldiers, politicians and generals. There are even a few good poets and writers. But there is no Pakistani Covid vaccine. With so few genuine scientists and researchers it produces little new knowledge or products.

That 81 Pakistanis were recently ranked in the worlds top two per cent of scientists by Stanford University turned out to be fake news. Stanford University was not involved in this highly dubious ranking. This was confirmed to me over email last week by Prof John Ioannidis of Stanford University. He, together with three co-authors, had been cited as the source.

What will it take to bring science back into Islam? The way may be similar to how music and Islam which in principle are incompatible are handled in Muslim countries today. It is perfectly usual for a Pakistani FM radio station that is blaring out Lady Gagas songs to briefly pause, broadcast a pre-recorded azan in all its dignified solemnity, and then resume with Beyonc until the next azan. Although the choice of music is quite abysmal, there is a clean separation of the worldly from the divine.

Separation is the key! When Galileo famously said the Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go, he was arguing the domains of science and belief do not overlap. This is how the West, China, and India developed modern scientific cultures. Centuries earlier, Muslim scholars had readily absorbed Greek learning while keeping their religious beliefs strictly personal. This made possible major discoveries and inventions. Whether one likes it or not, there is no other way to develop a culture of science.

The writer is an Islamabad based physicist and writer.

Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2021

View post:

Muslims and technology - DAWN.com

This was a year we needed technology to save us. A pandemic raced over the land, there were wildfires, uneasy political divisions, and we gasped in the miasma of social media. In 2020, the ways in which technology can help or hurt never seemed clearer.

In the success column we have covid-19 vaccines. But this article is not about successes. Instead, this is our annual list of the worst technology flops and failures. Our tally for 2020 includes billion-dollar digital business plans that faceplanted, covid tests that bombed, and the unforeseen consequences of wrapping the planet in cheap satellites.

The polymerase chain reaction is not a new technology. In fact, this technique for detecting the presence of specific genes was invented in 1980, and its inventor won a Nobel Prize a decade later. Its employed in a vast array of diagnostic tests and laboratory research.

GETTY

So it counts as a historic screw-up that at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, the specialized laboratories of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent states lab kits with wrong ingredients that didnt work. So began the failure to stop the pathogen, the sidelining of nations top public health agency, and, more broadly, the unexpected inability of the country that invented PCR to get coronavirus tests to everyone who needs one. Widespread and frequent testing is what economists said would be the swiftest, cheapest way to keep the country up and running. Even now, 11 months later, lines and delays are still the testing norm in the US, even as private labs, universities, and health centers run approximately two million tests per day.

Read more:

Stop covid or save the economy? We can do both, MIT Technology Review

The CDCs failed race against covid-19: A threat underestimated and a test overcomplicated, Washington Post

Imagine a grainy video from a convenience store robbery. A shoplifter looks at the camera and presto, police use face recognition to identify a suspect. Now imagine a citylike Portland, Oregonthat decides it has to ban police from doing that.

The ability to match faces is one of the signal triumphs of the new generation of artificial intelligence, and the technique is appearing everywhere. That includes settings where its use can seem intrusive or unfair, like schools or public housing. The result this year: a run of bans and restrictions by cities, states, and companies that could stifle one of the first and most significant results of superhuman AI.

The reason the technology is accelerating is that cameras are everywhereand we all handed over our selfies. We have allowed the beast out of the bag by feeding it billions of faces, and helping it by tagging ourselves, says Joseph Atick, who built an early face recognition system using special cameras and a custom image database. Now there are hundreds of face recognition programs crunching pictures online. Controlling these systems, says Atick, is no longer a technological issue.

Over the summer, Microsoft and Amazon both denied police access to their face-matching systems, at least temporarily, and cities like Portland enacted sweeping bans that also stop hotels and shops from identifying people. Whats still missing is a national framework to guide right and wrong uses. Instead of a cycle of abuses and bans, we need policy. And in the US, we dont have it yet.

Listen to more: Attention, Shoppers: Youre Being Tracked, In Machines We Trust podcast

Quick bites. Big stories. That was the motto of Quibi, a Hollywood-powered streaming service that set out in April to revolutionize entertainment with 10-minute shows for phone screens.

But the big story ended up being Quibis fast demise. Six months after its debut, the company was firing talent and giving what remained of its $1.75 billion budget back to investors.

DANIEL BOCZARSKI/GETTY IMAGES FOR QUIBI

The misfire reminded us of journalisms infamous 2018 pivot, in which news sites reassigned reporters en masse to manufacture ultra-short text-on-screen videos before brutally firing everyone. Similarly, Quibi was using well-paid pros to make slick $4.99-a-month subscription content that competed with YouTube, TikTok, and hordes of creators who film cat videos and dance moves for free.

In a farewell letter, studio mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and Quibi CEO Meg Whitman said their pursuit of a new category of entertainment might have been misguided, but they also directed blame at the pandemic, which kept people at home in front of the TV. Unfortunately, we will never know, but we suspect its been a combination of the two, they wrote. Our failure was not for lack of trying.

Read more: Quibi Is Shutting Down Barely Six Months After Going Live, Wall Street Journal

Since 2016, several dozen US diplomats and spies in Cuba and China have been hit by a spectrum of painful and strange neurological symptoms. Theyve woken to sharp noises and experienced loss of balance and a feeling of pressure in the face. The most plausible cause of their torment, according to the National Academies of Sciences: a microwave weapon.

AFRL DIRECTED ENERGY DIRECTORATE

No one can say for sure if a directed beams of pulsed radio energy aimed into diplomats homes and hotel rooms are to blame for Havana syndrome. The US was slow to recognize and investigate the pattern of injuries and still cant name a cause with certainty. What is clear is that anyone using a microwave weapon in deliberate attacks has failed to think things through. Other powers, including the US, can also generate powerful, invisible beams to cause headaches, clicking noises inside the skull, nausea, and hearing loss. The clandestine use of such over-the-air technology, the academies said, raises grave concerns about a world with disinhibited malevolent actors and new tools for causing harm to others.

Some weapons just shouldnt be used.

Learn more: An Assessment of Illness in U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies, The National Academies Standing Committee to Advise the Department of State on Unexplained Health Effects on U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies

Have you ever had a dream where you show up at work or school in your underpants? With Zoom, its entirely possible.

During the pandemic, the video app became our new office, our schoolyard, and our way to socialize. With it came the hazard of broadcasting what should remain private. There was the toilet flush as the Supreme Court held oral arguments, and the Mexican senator who changed her top on video without realizing it.

JOE KOHEN/GETTY IMAGES FOR THE NEW YORKER

Gross-out humor turned to tragedy in the case of prominent CNN and New Yorker legal critic Jeffrey Toobin, who allegedly exposed his genitalia to coworkers as he fumbled between a work Zoom and a pornographic interlude. Many said Toobin deserved to be fired by the New Yorker, citing the #metoo movement (#metoobin became the hashtag). Others sympathized with an all-too-human situation. There but for better camera work go I, they seemed to be saying.

Read more: New Yorker Suspends Jeffrey Toobin for Masturbating on Zoom Call, Vice News

Since prehistory, humankind has looked upwards for awe and inspiration, to imagine what forces created the worldand which might end it.

But now, that cosmic view is being contaminated with the reflections of thousands of inexpensive commercial satellites put aloft by companies like Amazon, OneWeb, and SpaceX, who want to cover the Earth with internet connections. Sixty satellites can swarm out of a single rocket.

CTIO/NOIRLAB/NSF/AURA/DECAM DELVE SURVEY

The problem for astronomers is that sunlight reflects from the satellites, which race by at low altitudes at dawn or hover overhead, perpetually illuminated. Their sheer numbers pose a problem. SpaceX plans to launch 12,000 of its Starlink satellites, while other operators plan 50,000.

Concern is greatest for wide-field optical telescopes sitting atop mountains, whose job includes detecting exoplanets or near-Earth objects that could collide with our planet. Now theres an after-the-fact attempt to fix the problem. SpaceX tried coloring a satellite black, but it heated up too fast. More recently, the company started equipping satellites with sunshade visors to stop the reflections.

Read more: Satellite mega-constellations risk ruining astronomy forever, MIT Technology Review

Learn More: Impact of Satellite Constellations on Optical Astronomy and Recommendations Toward Mitigations, NSF NOIRLab

We knew things could go wrong with the rushed vaccine effort against covid-19, but the fate of Australias homegrown candidate was still a surprise.

Read more:

The biggest technology failures of 2020 - MIT Technology Review