Month: May 2018

Technology Revolution Can Help or Harm Societies

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

As artificial intelligence is used in an increasingly connected world, experts say inherent risks need to be addressed now as societies become more and more dependent on the technology for everyday tasks.

“It’s quite explosive what we’re seeing,” said Tom Siebel, chairman and chief executive officer at computer software company C3 IoT, during a recent Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles.

The experts discussed the benefits and dangers of technologies that allow machines to gather and analyze large amounts of data from connected devices. 

Dangers of a connected world

“Well, I think there are very serious concerns that we need to be aware of as it relates to the aggregation of all these data. A lot of this is personal identifiable data, economic data, health history data, human genomic data,” said Siebel, in discussing how the technology is applied to daily life.

Technology experts also said artificial intelligence has the potential to put people out of work.

“When we have autonomous vehicles, what are the taxi drivers in New York City going to do? This idea that we’re going to retrain them to be data scientists, this is crazy,” Siebel said. “What’s happening in the corporate world is corporations are facing a mass extinction event. Since the beginning of this century, 52 percent of the Fortune 500 companies have disappeared from the planet.”

In their place are new types of firms such as Uber, AirBnB, Amazon, and even car company Tesla. They exist because of artificial intelligence and big data. These technologies are not only affecting the corporate world, but they also pose a threat to national security, said the technology experts.

“As the most developed country in the world, we are at the most risk. We are connected the most, and our grid can be hacked,” said Usman Shuja, whose company, SparkCognition, works with industrial and defense clients.

“When the physical world gets connected to the internet, it’s not about stealing data, and IP. It’s also about causing a lot of damage. A turbine can be turned into a bomb, and a pump can be turned into something explosive. So, a lot of physical damage can also happen with cyberwarfare,” Shuja said.

Not moving forward with the technology, however, also poses risks, he noted.

“Today, the challenge with AI is if we don’t do it, somebody else can do it, so it’s become a race. If we don’t do it, China could do it. Russia could do it. Iran could do it,” said Shuja.

Technology experts said societies and governments need to prepare for what technology will bring and anticipate how it will change industries and society.

“Somebody needs to legislate. Somebody needs to regulate. These are important issues, and if we don’t do something about it, we’re going to be sorry,” warned Siebel.

The technology has implications for wealthy and developing countries, the experts said.

“AI, on the dangerous side of it, it can widen the gap. It can widen the gap so big that the poor countries can be left out; however, this is also the chance for poor countries and developing countries to skip the industrial revolution and make up for the lost time,” said Shuja.

Benefits of machine learning and AI

The experts predict the benefits of artificial intelligence and machine learning will be seen across industries.

“We can save lives. We can identify illnesses in a predictive way. We can use fitness health data to be able to detect health issues long before they occur,” said Tom Bianculli, Zebra Technologies’ chief technology officer. 

Artificial intelligence can also help the planet, the experts said.

“Energy and power systems will be more environmentally efficient,” noted Siebel.

Technologists said the key is to find ways of minimizing the dangerous side of artificial intelligence while maximizing the benefits to society.
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Google to Showcase AI Advances at Its Big Conference

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Google is likely to again put artificial intelligence in the spotlight at its annual developers conference Thursday.

 

The company’s digital concierge, known only as the Google Assistant, could gain new abilities to handle tasks such as making restaurant reservations without human hand-holding.

 

Google may also unveil updates to its Android mobile operating system, enable better AI-powered navigation suggestions in Google Maps, and push further into augmented reality technology, which overlays a view of the real world with digital images.

 

The search giant aims to make its assistant so useful that people can’t live without it — or the search results that drive its advertising business. But it also wants to play up the social benefits of AI, and plans to showcase how it’s being used to improve health care, preserve the environment and make scientific discoveries.

 

CEO Sundar Pichai probably won’t emphasize privacy or data security concerns, which have put companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google in the crosshairs of regulators. But Google could also give parents new tools to manage how children access video and other material on different devices.

 

The company is also expected to unveil a new app for news that combines elements of its Google Play Newsstand app and YouTube.

 

It’s too early in the year for Google to showcase any new hardware, which it tends to do ahead of the Christmas shopping season. Last week, however, it said its partner Lenovo will sell a $400 stand-alone virtual reality headset that doesn’t require inserting a smartphone. (Facebook last week announced a competing $199 device called the Oculus Go.)

 

Google also last week updated actions that its assistant can perform on smartwatches powered by its Wear OS software. For instance, it can tell you about your day if you’re wearing headphones instead of making you read your calendar.

 

 
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Countries Race Towards Technological Dominance Knowing Benefits and Risks

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

With technology developing at an exponential rate, experts say the world is experiencing a fourth industrial revolution – one that will be driven by artificial intelligence and machines that can analyze huge amounts of data from connected devices. But experts warn that aside from the benefits, the revolution also has the potential to harm societies. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has this report from the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles.
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Smoke to Ink? Indian Inventors Try Novel Approach to Tame Air Pollution

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

As the pre-monsoon summer heat takes hold in New Delhi, two things are as inevitable as 40-degree-Celsius days: power cuts and air pollution from the diesel generators that then kick in.

But a team of Indian engineers has figured out away to bring some good from choking generator exhaust: They are capturing it and turning it into ink.

“The alarming thing about diesel generators is they are located in the heart of densely populated areas. It’s spitting smoke right there,” said Kushagra Srivastava, one of the three engineers who developed the technology, now installed in Gurgaon, a satellite city of New Delhi, and in the southern city of Chennai.

The idea, Srivastava said, came about when he and his co-founders stopped at a sugarcane juice stall on a hot day.

They noticed a wall that had turned black behind the stand’s diesel generator, where exhaust emerged from a pipe.

They wondered if diesel exhaust might be used to produce paint — and set out to try.

The device they came up with, which attaches to generators, captures 90 percent of the soot particles from cooled diesel exhaust. The material can then be sold to ink manufacturers.

Their company, Chakr Innovation, has so far installed 50 of the devices for government firms such as Indian Oil, real estate developers and other state government offices, earning more than 11 million rupees ($200,000) in revenue in the first year, Srivastava said.

The company has plans to install another 50 devices over the coming year, he said. It has so far sold 500 kg of collected soot, which has been used to create 20,000 liters of ink, he added.

Chakr Innovations is not the first start-up to see cash in diesel exhaust. A competitor called Graviky Labs, based in Bangalore, is using similar technology to turn diesel exhaust from vehicles into ink.

Choking Air

Srivastava and his co-inventors Arpit Dhupar and Prateek Sachan see themselves as part of a movement towards cleaner air and energy in a country where major cities struggle with choking air.

About 1.1 million people a year die from the impacts of air pollution in India, according to a 2015 survey by the U.S.-based Health Effects Institute. That is about a quarter of the total number of air pollution deaths worldwide, it said.

In New Delhi, levels of the most dangerous particles in the air are sometimes 10 times higher than the safe limit, the survey noted.

Srivastava and Dhupar both grew up in New Delhi, which the World Health Organization in 2014 declared the most polluted city in the world. Sachan comes from Allahabad, the third most polluted city in WHO’s 2016 rankings.

“Earlier I remember there were a lot less cars on the road, there was a lot less congestion, and a lot more greenery,” said Dhupar, Chakr’s chief technology officer.

But as trees were felled and roads widened to accommodate more cars, Dhupar — then in high school — developed chronic respiratory problems. Doctors put him on medication and warned him to stop playing sports.

“My problem is, whenever I start to run out of air, the anxiety levels shoot up,” he said.

Dhupar said many of his family and friends have also developed long-term respiratory issues.

Diesel exhaust contributed to just 2 percent of all air pollution deaths in India in 2015, according to the Health Effects Institute.

But in “confined spaces” in urban areas, where many generators are used, it represents a larger risk, said Pankaj Sadavarte, one of the report’s researchers.

Action in New Delhi

India has in place policies to monitor and restrict air pollution, but they can be difficult to enforce, experts say.

Worries about air pollution are growing, however. Last November, the capital launched its first air quality emergency action plan during a particularly hazardous week when pollution spiked.

The government halted construction within the city, raised parking fees to discourage driving and shut schools to keep children indoors.

The national Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is drafting a national policy to clean India’s air, though its release has been delayed, said Sunil Dahiya, a senior campaigner with Greenpeace India.

“The air pollution debate and health debate is picking up in India,” Dahiya said in a telephone interview. “That momentum is forcing the policymakers to make our cities more livable.”
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Hotter Seas Threaten Marine Wildlife with Extinction, Researchers Say

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Polar bears and other iconic animals could be extinct by the end of the century if ocean temperatures continue to rise at the current rate, marine biologists warned Monday.

Warming temperatures caused by climate-changing emissions may result in a catastrophic loss of marine wildlife and drastic changes to ocean food webs by 2100, scientists at the Florida Institute of Technology and the University of North Carolina said in a paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Ocean temperatures on rise

Much current marine life will be unable to tolerate ocean temperatures that are projected to increase by 2.8 degrees Celsius on average, according to the study.

“With warming of this magnitude, we expect to lose many, if not most, animal species from marine protected areas by the turn of the century,” said the study’s lead author, John Bruno, a biologist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Marine protected areas, established as sanctuaries for polar bears, coral reefs and other wildlife threatened by human activities such as fishing and oil extraction, have failed to protect species from the impacts of global warming, the scientists said.

In Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, a large number of corals already have been destroyed by bleaching and diseases related to higher temperatures, the study noted.

Poles are most at risk

The protections in place will be ineffective by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at the current rate, researchers said.

Reduced oxygen concentrations in the ocean — one consequence of global warming — will make marine protected areas uninhabitable to most species, they argued.

Richard Aronson, a co-author of the study and head of the department of ocean engineering and marine sciences at Florida Tech, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that wildlife in the Arctic and Antarctic is particularly at risk.

“Oceanic warming is happening most rapidly at the poles. Warming will threaten polar ecosystems generally, including iconic wildlife like polar bears and penguins,” he said in an email.

Oceans absorb gases

Around 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed by oceans, Aronson said.

“We have to take bold steps individually and as a society to control emissions. Shifting away from our dependence on fossil fuels would be a major step in the right direction,” he said.

“Stabilizing emissions over the next few decades could cut the rate of warming in half,” he added.
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Afghan Girl Coders Design Games to Fight Opium and Inequality

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Think Super Mario Bros., but with an Afghan twist. This is how Afghanistan’s first generation of female coders explain their abilities as game-makers after uploading more than 20 games on digital app stores this year.

More than 20 young women in the western city of Heart have established themselves as computer experts, building apps and websites as well as tracking down bugs in computer code.

Like the team of Afghan schoolgirls who rose to fame last year when they competed in a robotics competition in the United States, the coders show what reserves of talent there are to be tapped when Afghan girls are given a chance.

“Coders can work from home and it is in this process women are building a new career path for themselves and for the next generation,” said Hasib Rasa, project manager of Code to Inspire, which teaches female students coding in Herat.

One of the games designed by the all-female team has caught the eye of developers and gamers as it illustrates the scourge of opium cultivation and the challenges the Afghan security forces face as they try to stamp it out.

The 2-D game “Fight Against Opium” is an animated interpretation of the missions that Afghan soldiers undertake to destroy opium fields, fight drug lords and help farmers switch to growing saffron.

Afghanistan is the world’s largest source of opium but it also grows saffron – the world’s most expensive spice – which has long been pushed as an alternative to wean farmers off a crop used to make heroin.

Despite a ban, opium production hit a record in 2017, up 87 percent over 2016, according to a U.N. study.  

Khatira Mohammadi, a student who helped develop the anti-opium game, said she wanted to show the complexities of the drug problem in the simplest way.

“We have illustrated our country’s main problem through a game,” said Mohammadi.

At the institute, more than 90 girls and young women, wearing headscarves and long black coats, are trained in coding and software development, a profession seen by some in conservative Afghanistan as unsuitable for women.

In Afghan society, it is unusual for women to work outside the home. Those who do, are mostly teachers, nurses, doctors, midwives and house helpers.

After the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, women regained freedom to work in offices with male colleagues – but many consider working as a software developer a step too far.

Hasib Rasa said girls are encouraged to design original player characters, goals, and obstacles that reflect Afghanistan’s ethos.

The course is exclusively aimed at females, aged 15-25, who are unable to pursue a four-year degree due to lack of funds or hail from families where they are prevented from enrolling in co-education schools.

“In Afghanistan the ability to work remotely is a key tool in the push for equality,” said Rasa.
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Low Rents Drew Residents to Take Risk of Living Near Hawaii Volcano

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Jeremy Wilson knew it was risky renting a home in an area with the highest hazard level for lava flows in Hawaii, but it was all he could afford for his family of six.

Now, with magma spewing from cracks in the earth above and below his 3-bedroom home, he fears it could join the 26 other houses destroyed since the eruption of the nearby Kilauea volcano on Thursday, according to Hawaii County Civil Defense.

“I’m a renter but everything we own is in that house,” said Wilson, a 36-year-old social worker, who moved to the Leilani Estates subdivision four years ago and is among 1,700 residents who have evacuated since the eruption.

The semi-rural wooded area, with dirt roads and many homemade “off the grid” houses, is a landing pad for newcomers to Hawaii’s Big Island who cannot afford real-estate prices elsewhere.

“If you want to live in Hawaii, it’s really your only option,” said Wilson, who has been staying with friends along with his two children, wife, mother-in-law and uncle since they were forced to flee.

Keeping prices low in Leilani Estates is the “Zone 1” (out of nine) hazard rating for lava-flows the U.S. Geological Survey gives the area due to “vents that have been repeatedly active in historical time.”

Reminder of 1955 event

Geologists say this week’s activity is beginning to look like an event in 1955 in which eruptions continued for 88 days in the area and covered around 4,000 acres with lava, though few people lived there back then. More recently in 2014, lava threatened the nearby Puna district and the town of Pahoa.

Jessica Gauthier, 47, a realtor in Leilani Estates, said the eruption of Kilauea, about 12 miles (19 km) distant, was a reality check for new residents.

“People move here thinking it’s paradise, and what they learn is that it’s something different,” said Gauthier. Eruptions of lava and toxic sulfur dioxide gas continued within the subdivision, and larger aftershocks from Friday’s 6.9 magnitude earthquake were expected, the observatory said.

A lava flow advanced about a mile from one of ten vents that have opened. As the lava finds a preferred route, some vents are expected to close, putting pressure on others and shooting magma up to 1,000 feet (305 m) into the air. On Saturday it reached heights of 230 feet.

Some residents saw eruptions as inevitable and said if Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess, wanted the land back, then she would take it.

‘No stranger to disasters’

Wilson, who grew up in Springfield, Missouri, was less philosophical. He has been trying to rescue his possessions before they are torched.

He was forced back on Sunday when he saw smoke coming from cracks in the road on the approach to his house.

“I’m from Tornado Alley. So I’m no stranger to disasters, but this is something else,” said Wilson. “This is crazy.”
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No One Thinks You’re Humble When You Mention Your Porsche

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

You’ve seen it among a group of friends, the inflated and often irritating “humblebrag.”

Maybe it was even you who did it.

Wanting to seem more important or smarter or wealthier or something, whatever, you blurted out how messy your hair looks as you pull off a Taylor Swift-worthy hair toss of your beautiful, long locks. Or you utter something about how irritating the traffic was Friday as you drove your new Porsche Panamera to your parents’ country house.

Or how you can’t believe you got 1580 on your SATs, especially when you didn’t have time to study because you were volunteering at a homeless shelter.

According to new research, the fake “humblebrag” will boomerang.

 

“Humblebragging, in fact, does not create more favorable impressions than either bragging or complaining,” according to a study authored by Ovul Sezer recently published in Harvard Business Review.

Because sincerity, the researchers said, is more highly valued than competence or success.

How it’s done

There are two types of humblebragging, explained Sezer, who now teaches at University of North Carolina. One is based in complaining and one tries to feign humility.

“It’s like, ‘Oh my god, I’m so exhausted by all these dating requests, like, everyone just asks me out constantly, even in the grocery store,’” Sezer uses as an example. “Or, ‘I’m so tired of being the one my boss trusts in this company.’

“That’s very annoying to hear,” said Sezer.

The humility-based brag tries to make yourself look humble, but not really. Like saying you can’t believe you got into all your dream schools after being at the top of your class all through high school.

Sezer argues that the humility-based humblebrag is often more subtle and less annoying to peers than the complaint-based humblebrag. But either one is likely to repel rather than attract others.

“Research suggests that sincerity is desirable and is seen as particularly fundamental to people’s identity,” she and Harvard co-authors Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton wrote.

For example, “It lowkey sucks being attractive because then if people don’t like you you know it’s your personality,” reddit user alg0e wrote.

According to Sezer, “The reason why humblebragging fails to pay off, and it’s even worse than just straightforward bragging, is because it comes across as very fake.”

Becoming widespread

With social media, humblebragging has become more visible and maybe even more acceptable.

“With the digitalization of the world, it became more common everywhere. Now when I go to my Instagram feed or I check my Facebook and Twitter, I know that I will see a humblebrag on that day,” she told VOA. “There is something happening that people will be putting on their profiles, and that makes it seem like it’s okay.”

There are ways that you can be proud of your accomplishments and talk about them without bragging or humblebragging.

“I really think the best way to let others know about your accomplishments is really to get a wingman,” she said, describing someone who will promote and boast for you. “If you [are talking] to someone and they say, ‘Oh, he is amazing!’ or ‘She is just wonderful,’ it’s such a powerful way of knowing about someone’s accomplishments because it’s coming from somebody else, so I would highly recommend that.

 “Because imagine, if it’s coming from someone else, it’s just like, more beautiful,” she said.

“If there’s no wingman for you, I would say still avoid the humblebrag,” Sezer said. “Because sincerity is very important in life. We really care about whether the people we interact with are being sincere or not.”
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Anti-Semites Use Twitter as ‘Megaphone to Harass Jews,’ says Rights Group

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Anti-Semites are using Twitter as a “megaphone to harass and intimidate Jews,” the pro-Jewish civil rights group Anti-Defamation League says.

In a new report Monday, the ADL says Twitter users sent out at least 4.2 million anti-Semitic posts in 2017 — an average of 81,400 a week.

“This new data shows that even with the steps Twitter has taken to remove hate speech and to deal with those accounts disseminating it, users are still spreading a shocking amount of anti-Semitism,” ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt says.

Examples of the hate-filled tweets include Holocaust denial; claims that Jews killed Jesus Christ, a belief long disowned by the Vatican; and such propaganda as Jews control banking and the media.

The ADL is calling on Twitter to take such steps as a terms of service policy clearly banning hate speech, and effective filters that stop such messages from reaching users.

Twitter says it has made more than 30 changes to its operations in the last 16 months to combat hate speech.

“We are an open platform and hold a mirror up to human behaviors, both the good and the bad. Everyone has a part to play in building a more compassionate and empathetic society,” Twitter said in a statement. 
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Tourists Flocking to Peru’s Newfound ‘Rainbow Mountain’

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Tourists gasp for breath as they climb for two hours to a peak in the Peruvian Andes that stands 16,404 feet (5,000 meters) above sea level. They’re dead tired, but stunned by the magical beauty unfurled before them.

 

Stripes of turquoise, lavender and gold blanket what has become known as “Rainbow Mountain,” a ridge of multicolored sediments laid down millions of years ago and pushed up as tectonic plates clashed. It’s only within the last five years that the natural wonder has been discovered by the outside world, earning it must-see status on Peru’s burgeoning backpacker tourist circuit.

 

“You see it in the pictures and you think it’s Photoshopped — but it’s real,” said Lukas Lynen, an 18-year-old tourist from Mexico.

 

The popularity of Rainbow Mountain, which attracts up to 1,000 tourists each day, has provided a much-needed economic jolt to this remote region populated by struggling alpaca herders. Environmentalists, however, fear the tourists could destroy the treasured landscape, which is already coveted by international mining companies.

 

“From the ecological point of view they are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs,” said Dina Farfan, a Peruvian biologist who has studied threatened wildlife in the area just a few hours from the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu.

As proof, he points to a 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) dirt trail climbed by tourists to reach Rainbow Mountain that has been badly eroded in the last 18 months, scarring the otherwise pristine landscape. A wetland once popular with migrating ducks has also been turned into a parking lot the size of five soccer fields that fills each morning with vans of mostly European and American visitors.

 

There are more serious threats, too.

 

Camino Minerals Corp., a Canadian-based mining company, has applied for mining rights in the mineral-rich area that includes the mountain. The company did not respond to a request by The Associated Press for comment on its plans.

 

Yet the flood of tourists has meant jobs and hard cash for the local Pampachiri indigenous community, which has struggled with high rates of alcoholism, malnutrition and falling prices of wool for their prized alpaca. Many have abandoned nomadic life for dangerous gold mining jobs in the Amazon.

Now, they charge tourists $3 each to enter their ancestral land, netting the community roughly $400,000 a year — a small fortune that has triggered a tax battle with an impoverished, nearby municipality, which has seen no part of the windfall.

 

The surge in tourists also comes with a responsibility to be good stewards of the environment and their new guests, and Pampachiri community leader Gabino Huaman admits he is not sure they are ready to fully handle it.

 

“We don’t know one word in English,” he said. “Or first aid.”

Despite the challenges, roughly 500 villagers have returned in the last couple of years to take up their ancestral trade of transporting goods across the Andes. The difference is that now they are hauling tourists on horseback.

“It’s a blessing,” said Isaac Quispe, 25, who quit his job as a gold miner after six of his camp mates were murdered. He returned home and bought a horse that last year earned him $5,200 hauling tourists uphill.

The guides dress in colorful woolen clothes and wide-brimmed, traditional hats to lead the horses.

Farfan, the biologist, said he hopes the Pampachiri can learn from other sustainable tourism endeavors in Peru.

 

It was the success of one such project, in the nearby town of Chillca, that first put Rainbow Mountain on the map.

 

For much of the past decade, a group of shepherds had been quietly taking small groups of tourists to the mountain as part of a five-day hike around the fast-melting Ausangate glacier. Over time, and thanks to the stunning photographs posted on the internet, the secret got out.

Today the shepherds of Chillca manage four lodges made of eucalyptus wood with a capacity for 16 tourists each. They are lighted only by candle, but have hot water.

 

Arriving guests are given shoes made of alpaca leather and wool. At dawn, lodge-keeper Orlando Garcia gently awakens his guests with a love song performed in the Quechua language.

 

“You always have to be guessing what the client wants, and take care of it so you don’t lose their smile,” Garcia says. “We want them to feel the greatest comfort at almost 16,404 feet.”
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US-China Tensions Climb Over ‘Orwellian Nonsense’ on Airlines

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

As the United States considers ramping up trade tariffs and other actions in response to China’s economic policies, tensions in another area heated up in recent days: How airlines should refer to Taiwan.

The White House released a statement over the weekend criticizing China for demanding international air carriers not refer to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as countries. Airlines recently reported they had been asked to remove references on their websites that suggest the three are countries independent from China.

China classifies Macau and Hong Kong as “special administrative regions,” and calls Taiwan a renegade province. 

The White House called China’s demand “Orwellian nonsense” and said it is “part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies.” 

China rejected the White House criticism.

“Foreign enterprises operating in China should respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, abide by China’s law and respect the national sentiment of the Chinese people,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Sunday.

The White House statement came as the U.S. trade delegation headed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin returned from China following a two-day meeting with Chinese counterparts aimed at avoiding a possible trade war.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters that members of the delegation briefed the president Monday morning and the talks will continue in Washington next week.

“The president has a great relationship with President Xi, and we’re working on something that we think will be great for everybody,” Sanders said, adding, “China’s top economic adviser, the Vice Premier [Liu He] will be coming here next week to continue the discussions with the president’s economic team.”

Trump has threatened to levy new tariffs on up to $150 billion of Chinese imports while Beijing shot back with a list of $50 billion in targeted U.S. goods.

New pressure on Taiwan

Last month, Chinese Civil Aviation Administration sent letters to 36 foreign airlines, including a number of American carriers, and demanded they remove references on their websites or in other material that suggests Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are independent territories from China.

Hong Kong and Macau, former British and Portuguese colonies respectively, are now “special administrative regions” of China that maintain separate administrative and judicial systems from the rest of the country.

Taiwan, however, has been self-ruled since the 1949 civil war and has been deemed by Beijing a renegade province.

“We call on all businesses to resist #China’s efforts to mischaracterize #Taiwan,” tweeted Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Sunday.

Earlier this year, Delta Air Lines issued a formal apology to China for referring to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Tibet as countries on its website.

Richard Bush, co-director for Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution and former chairman of American Institute in Taiwan, says Taiwan’s legal and political status is an issue for countries, but not companies.

“It should not be an issue between the Chinese government and American companies or any companies for that matter,” he contended.

Bush pointed out China has been taking a number of steps to intimidate and pressure Taiwan, and it is appropriate for the United States government to push back.

“This is an effort to, in effect, change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, so it is something the United State government should oppose,” he said, adding, “I’m not sure bringing George Orwell or talking about political correctness are the precise terms I would use.”

The United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in the 1979 U.S.-P.R.C. Joint Communique, in which the United States recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China. As part of that agreement, Washington acknowledged the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.

However, U.S. lawmakers have continued to lobby to support Taiwan, and the United States still sells hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons to Taiwan, despite China’s objections. In March, President Donald Trump signed into law a bill that encourages high-level exchanges of officials with Taiwan.
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Egypt Approves Law to Govern Popular Ride-Hailing Apps

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Egypt’s parliament has approved a law to govern popular ride-hailing apps Uber and Careem, which had faced legal challenges stemming from regulations designed for traditional taxis.

The new law, as described Monday by state news agency MENA, establishes operating licenses and fees. It requires licensed companies to store user data for 180 days and provide it to Egyptian security authorities upon request.

Uber and Careem welcomed the move.

“This is a major step forward for the ride-sharing industry as Egypt becomes one of the first countries in the Middle East to pass progressive regulations,” Uber spokeswoman Shaden Abdellatif said. “We will continue working with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet in the coming months as the law is finalized, and look forward to continuing to serve the millions of Egyptian riders and drivers that rely on Uber.”

Careem called the passage “a remarkable step for Egypt, Careem and our region.” It said it marked the first time in any of its markets “that a regulatory framework for ride-hailing has emerged from a consultative legislative and parliamentary process.”

Both companies provide smartphone apps that connect passengers with drivers who work as independent contractors. An administrative court in Cairo ruled in March that it is illegal to use private vehicles as taxis, but another court overruled it on appeal, and both companies have continued operating.

Data privacy is a major concern for Uber in its dealings with the Egyptian government. A strict new European law called the General Data Protection Regulation comes into effect May 25 and would affect its operations worldwide.

Uber was founded in 2010 in San Francisco, and operates in more than 600 cities across the world. Careem was founded in 2012 in Dubai, and operates in 90 cities in the Middle East and North Africa, Turkey and Pakistan.

The applications took off in Cairo, a city of 20 million people with near-constant traffic and little parking. The services have recently started offering rides on scooters and tuk-tuks, three-wheeled motorized vehicles that can sometimes squeeze through the gridlock.

The apps are especially popular among women, who face rampant sexual harassment in Egypt, including from some taxi drivers. Cairo’s taxi drivers are also notorious for tampering with their meters or pretending the meters are broken in order to charge higher rates.

In 2016, taxi drivers protested the ride-hailing apps. They have complained that Uber and Careem drivers have an unfair advantage because they do not have to pay the same taxes or fees, or follow the same licensing procedures.
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UN: Migrant Workers Sent $256 Billion Home to Asia-Pacific Last Year

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Migrant workers from the Asia-Pacific region sent $256 billion home last year, but more needs to be done to cut costs and make money transfers easier, said a United Nations report Monday.

Remittances, which have risen about 5 percent since 2008, helped about 320 million family members across the region last year, according to the United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

“It is crucial and critical to make sure these flows arrive fast and cheap,” said Pedro de Vasconcelos, a remittance expert at the IFAD. “It is a lifeline for millions of families.”

According to the report, 80 million migrant workers sent money home an average eight to 10 times per year.

They usually paid about 7 percent in charges to use cash-to-cash transfers, which enable money to be sent overseas often without using a personal bank account.

A decade ago, remittances to people in rural areas could cost as much as 20 to 25 percent in fees, charges and currency exchange rates, said De Vasconcelos.

But rates are still too high despite increased competition, he added.

He urged those making and receiving remittances to embrace digital technology such as mobile phones for transferring money, and he predicted that such methods would soon overtake cash-to-cash.

Regulators and the private sector must also work together to harmonize the legal and regulatory frameworks between countries and support new technologies that enter the market, he added.

“The process of sending this money is where the real opportunity exists,” De Vasconcelos said.

Asia-Pacific is the biggest destination for remittances worldwide, with migrants holding jobs overseas that include construction, domestic work and health care, according to IFAD.

About 70 percent of remittances to the Asia-Pacific region came from Gulf countries, the United States and Europe.

“The type of work varies but you definitely see a majority of middle- to low-skilled labor,” De Vasconcelos said.

The three largest remittance-receiving nations were India at $69 billion, China at $64 billion and the Philippines at $33 billion, according to the report.

Remittances contributed an average 60 percent to a receiving household’s income, and the total was more than 10 times the amount of development aid received in the Asia-Pacific region.

About 70 percent of remittances are spent on basic needs like food, clothes, health care and education for families that are mostly in rural areas, according to the report.

The remaining 30 percent, or $77 billion, is often saved and invested in income-generating activities or investments, IFAD said.
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‘Hamilton’ Exhibit to Debut in Chicago This Fall

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Lin-Manuel Miranda and the producers of his hit Broadway musical “Hamilton” are bringing an exhibit to Chicago about the musical’s Founding Father namesake.

“Hamilton: The Exhibition” will be an immersive, interactive exhibit about Alexander Hamilton and the founding of the United States, The Chicago Tribune reports. The exhibit will start November 17 in a temporary structure the size of a football field on Northerly Island, a peninsula on Chicago’s lakefront.

Miranda created and starred in the original “Hamilton” production. He’ll provide a voice narration for the tour and be featured in video form.

“People want to learn more,” Miranda said. “It seems that two hours and 45 minutes of a musical were just not enough for them.”

The project will be directed creatively by David Korins, who designed the set for the musical. The exhibit will feature a series of rooms and scenes that will recreate important moments in Hamilton’s life, starting with his childhood in the Caribbean Island of St. Croix to his death in New Jersey during a duel.

“In the theater,” Miranda said, “I had to take a lot of liberties with history to get you out of there before 11 o’clock. Now we can have a theatrical experience with historical rigor.”

The exhibit will address questions that the musical doesn’t have time to address, said Jeffrey Seller, a Broadway producer who’s in charge of the project overall.

Chicago was chosen in part because of its support of the musical, Seller said. It’s had a sold-out run since opening in Chicago in October 2016.

The exhibit will likely stay for about six months before moving to other cities, Seller said. Ticket prices have yet to be finalized, but would likely be about $25 for children and $35 for adults, he said.
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NAFTA Talks Enter Critical Week with US Pushing Hard Line

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Talks to update the NAFTA trade deal enter a make-or-break week on Monday, as senior Canadian, U.S. and Mexican officials seek to resolve an impasse in key areas before elections in Mexico and the United States complicate the process.

Discussions in Washington will center on rules of origin governing what percentage of a car needs to be built in the North American Free Trade Agreement region to avoid tariffs, the pact’s dispute-resolution mechanism and U.S. demands for a sunset clause that could automatically kill the deal after five years.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer warned last week that if the talks took too long, approval by the Republican-controlled Congress may be on “thin ice.” The aim is to complete a vote during the “lame-duck” period before a new Congress is seated after November’s congressional elections.

Sources close to the talks suggest there is a creeping feeling of uncertainty and pessimism going into the new round because of gridlock on the most critical issues.

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, who is set to meet Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, said unless a deal in principle were agreed by mid-May there was almost no chance the current U.S. Congress could vote on it.

“The problem is that the remaining 20 percent is highly complex and strategic to do. It could even be more difficult than the 80 percent that has already been done,” he told El Heraldo newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

Mexico holds its presidential election on July 1 and the front-runner, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, says he wants a hand in redrafting NAFTA if he wins.

At the heart of the NAFTA revamp is U.S. President Donald Trump’s desire to retool rules for the automotive sector in order to try to bring jobs and investment back north from lower-cost Mexico. Despite months of talks on the issue, the sides remain far apart.

Guajardo said if a deal could not be reached, “we would be operating what some analysts have called ‘Zombie NAFTA’ … (one) that isn’t dead and isn’t modernized.”

Mexico’s main auto sector lobby has described the latest U.S. demands, which include raising the North American content to 75 percent from the current 62.5 percent over a period of four years for light vehicles, as “not acceptable.”

Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, predicted “a potentially stressful set of meetings when we pick this back up.”

 The U.S. proposal also would require that 40 percent of the value of light-duty passenger vehicles and 45 percent for pickup trucks be built in areas with wages of $16 per hour or higher.

That is seen as a hard pill to swallow for Mexico, where the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research has estimated auto assembly workers on average earn under $6 an hour, and workers at auto parts plants on average earn less than $3 an hour.

Bureaucratic nightmare 

 Critics also say it would create a bureaucratic nightmare of paperwork.

Talks to renegotiate NAFTA started last August to fulfill a campaign pledge by Trump to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.

Nine months later, the most troublesome issues remain open.

The United States has stuck with a proposed sunset clause for the new deal, which would mean the agreement would need to be renewed every five years, a move that critics say would create huge uncertainty for businesses.

Another contentious U.S. proposal is to repatriate dispute resolution to the domestic legal system from international tribunals. Both Canada and Mexico oppose that measure, and so does U.S. business.

Asked if an agreement were possible this week, a Mexican source close to the talks said: “The possibility is there, but it will depend on whether the United States is flexible.”

Trump has frequently said he would pull out of NAFTA if a better deal was not possible, although he has sounded more positive about the deal in recent weeks.

It is unclear where the United States will give ground to win a quick deal. The Trump administration has embraced confrontational policies in its dealings on trade.
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In a Film Festival Far, Far Away, Cannes Puts Art Over Commerce

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Cannes opened its doors on Monday for a festival that will show the new “Star Wars” spinoff but welcome fewer stellar names than usual.

Critics have said a jury including Cate Blanchett, Kristen Stewart and Lea Seydoux has more A-list acting talent than the films — many from lesser-known European, Asian and African filmmakers — vying for the Palme d’Or.

“Solo: A Star Wars Story,” will be the only Hollywood blockbuster screened during the fortnight, and even that will have already premiered in Los Angeles.

Netflix, which brought a raft of A-listers last year, is boycotting Cannes due to French rules that would stop it streaming movies for three years after a cinema release.

This will also be the first festival in years without Harvey Weinstein, the movie mogul once famous on the Riviera for his lavish parties, but now the subject of sexual assault allegations that have shaken the global film industry.

Weinstein has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.

Festival director Thierry Fremaux denied that the lack of U.S. movies indicated Cannes was losing its appeal in Hollywood, where studios increasingly release big films late in the year to get visibility in the run-up to the Oscars, which are awarded in late winter.

“You should never judge on one year,” he told a news conference, while adding that the perhaps the famously harsh press corp at Cannes — where movies are often booed during media screenings — might be “scaring certain productions” away.

Hollywood Reporter critic Scott Roxborough said Cannes remained “the number one film festival for quality cinema worldwide” and that its selection of less commercial movies showed “Cannes is going back to its roots.”

“It’s the only place really you can have an unknown film … that within a hour of being shown everybody is talking about it … within a day, a week, it’s the biggest name in arthouse cinema,” he told Reuters.

There are 21 films in the main competition and dozens more vying for other prizes and screening out of competition. Here are a handful of the most hotly anticipated:

Everybody Knows (Todos lo Saben)

The festival opens with this Spanish-language family drama starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. The writer-director is the Iranian Asghar Farhadi who won foreign language Oscars for “A Separation” and “The Salesman”, taut character-driven realist movies that explore the divisions imposed by social class and national boundaries. “Everybody Knows” is competing for the Palme d’Or.

The House That Jack Built

Danish provocateur Lars von Trier returns after being ejected from the festival in 2011 for telling a news conference he was a Nazi who sympathized with Adolf Hitler — comments he later said were taken out of context.

Matt Dillon stars as a serial killer of women. “We experience the story from Jack’s point of view, while he postulates each murder as an artwork in itself,” according to notes in the festival’s program.

Hollywood Reporter critic Roxborough said the film, screening out of competition, is one of his top-three must-sees, calling it: “a movie that could almost be seen as an answer to the MeToo movement, in a really nasty way.”

BlacKkKlansman

Spike Lee returns to Cannes almost 30 years after “Do the Right Thing” was tipped for, but failed to get, the Palme d’Or.  [“He said he was robbed, I agree with him],” said Roxborough.

“BlacKkKlansman,” the true story of an African-American police officer who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan, stars John David Washington (son of Denzel) and Adam Driver.

Lee says the story, set in the 1970s, is more relevant than ever in President Donald Trump’s America.

“Agent Orange refused to repudiate the Klan, the alt-right and the Nazis,” he told Hollywood Reporter. “‘There’s good people on both sides.’ That’s going to be on his gravestone.”

In competition for the Palme d’Or, “BlacKkKlansman” will open in U.S. cinemas on Aug. 10, one day before the anniversary of the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia where counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed by a car driven into the crowd.

The Man who Killed Don Quixote

Terry Gilliam’s two-decade struggle to make this film has entered movie folklore. An initial version, starring Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, was dumped after a series of calamities meant shooting had to stop.

Finally finished, it remains to be seen if this version, with “Brazil” star Jonathan Pryce as the Spanish knight who tilts at windmills, can be shown at Cannes due to a last-minute legal challenge from a movie producer who says he has the rights over it.

“It’s taken him so long to make this movie I think we all owe it to the man to go and check it out,” said Roxborough of the film that should, but may not, close the festival, out of competition, on May 19.

A Paris court on Monday heard an application for an injunction on showing the film, but will not rule until Wednesday.

Leto (The Summer)/ 3 Faces

Two films in the main competition will screen without the presence of their directors – both prevented from traveling by national authorities in their home countries.

Leto, about the Leningrad rock music scene in the latter years of the Soviet Union, is directed by Kirill Serebrennikov who is under house arrest pending a fraud case his supporters say is part of a government crackdown on artistic freedoms.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi was arrested in 2010 and banned from making films, but has continued to work, to international acclaim. Like his 2015 film “Taxi,” “3 Faces” features Panahi playing himself on screen.

The Cannes Film Festival runs from May 8 to May 19.
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Microsoft Launches $25M Program to Use AI for Disabilities

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Microsoft is launching a $25 million initiative to use artificial intelligence to build better technology for people with disabilities.

CEO Satya Nadella announced the new “AI for Accessibility” effort as he kicked off Microsoft’s annual conference for software developers. The Build conference in Seattle features sessions on cloud computing, artificial intelligence, internet-connected devices and virtual reality. It comes as Microsoft faces off with Amazon and Google to offer internet-connected services to businesses and organizations.

The conference and the new initiative offer Microsoft an opportunity to emphasize its philosophy of building AI for social good. The focus could help counter some of the ethical concerns that have risen over AI and other fast-developing technology, including the potential that software formulas can perpetuate or even amplify gender and racial biases.

The five-year accessibility initiative will include seed grants for startups, nonprofit organizations and academic researchers, as well as deeper investments and expertise from Microsoft researchers.

Microsoft President Brad Smith said the company hopes to empower people by accelerating the development of AI tools that provide them with more opportunities for independence and employment.

“It may be an accessibility need relating to vision or deafness or to something like autism or dyslexia,” Smith said in an interview. “There are about a billion people on the planet who have some kind of disability, either permanent or temporary.”

Those people already have “huge potential,” he said, but “technology can help them accomplish even more.”

Microsoft has already experimented with its own accessibility tools, such as a “Seeing AI” free smartphone app using computer vision and narration to help people navigate if they’re blind or have low vision. Nadella introduced the app at a previous Build conference. Microsoft’s translation tool also provides deaf users with real-time captioning of conversations.

“People with disabilities are often overlooked when it comes technology advances but Microsoft sees this as a key area to address concerns over the technology and compete against Google, Amazon and IBM,” said Nick McQuire, an analyst at CCS Insight.

Smith acknowledged that other firms, especially Apple and Google, have also spent years doing important work on accessibility. He said Microsoft’s accessibility fund builds on the model of the company’s AI for Earth initiative, which launched last year to jumpstart projects combating climate change and other environmental problems.

The idea, Smith said, is to get more startups excited about building tools for people with disabilities — both for the social good and for their large market potential.

Other announcements at the Build conference include partnerships with drone company DJI and chipmaker Qualcomm. More than 6,000 people are registered to attend, most of them developers who build apps for Microsoft’s products.

Facebook had its F8 developers’ gathering last week. Google’s I/O conference begins Tuesday. Apple’s takes place in early June.

This is the second consecutive year that Microsoft has held its conference in Seattle, not far from its Redmond, Washington, headquarters.
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Dogs Trained to Monitor Low Blood Sugar May Save Lives

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Dogs can be trained to sniff out drugs and explosives, so Mark Ruefenacht wondered if their exquisite sense of smell could be used to detect changes in a diabetic’s blood sugar level.

A near fatal episode prompted the forensic scientist, who’s had diabetes for most of his adult life, to ask that question. In 1999, while he was training a puppy to be a guide dog for the blind, his blood sugar suddenly dropped to a dangerously low level.

“More than likely, I had a seizure, from the low blood sugar,” Ruefenacht recalled, as he explained how the puppy kept trying to rouse him. “And he stuck with me and I was able to get my blood sugar up.”

That incident made him wonder if dogs could be trained to detect the inherent chemical changes that accompany a drop in blood sugar, called hypoglycemia, then alert their owners.    

Dogs4Diabetics

Ruefenacht worked with scientists and funded research which determined that the “smell” of hypoglycemia shows up in both breath and sweat. He also worked with and studied professionals who train dogs to sniff out everything from explosives to cancer. And most important of all, Ruefenacht started training a fun-loving yellow Labrador retriever named Armstrong to alert him when he was having a dangerously low blood sugar. The training proved so successful, Armstrong is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first diabetes-detection dog.

Sitting under a poster of Armstrong, who died in 2012, Ruefenacht recalls that those early successes led some organizations to offer him large sums of money for the rights to his discoveries.  Ruefenacht says he turned those opportunities down. Instead, in 2004, he founded Dogs4Diabetics. 

He says properly training a diabetes detection dog and its owner can cost $50,000.  The organization raises money to cover these expenses, then provides the dogs at no cost to people who qualify.

The smell of hypoglycemia

The dogs are trained to identify the scent of hypoglycemia on a reliable and consistent basis. Ruefenacht uses jars containing swabs of sweat from a diabetic who had low blood sugar, randomly mixed with jars of other distracting smells, such as peanut butter, dog food and eucalyputus.  The dogs are rewarded when they select the correct jar. This “sweat jar” method for training diabetes alert dogs has been validated scientifically.

The next step is to teach them to alert their owner. The dogs are trained to use subtle signals, but if those go unnoticed, to put their paws on his lap, or balance on their back legs and put their front paws on his shoulders. They learn to snuffle at his nose and mouth, lick his face and bark.  And if all else fails, they’re trained to get someone else to come and help.

Ruefenacht says the dogs are often aware of blood sugar drops long before electronic monitoring systems send a warning alarm.

Dogs4Diabetics has placed more than 100 dogs with diabetics.  They hope to expand the program – training humanity’s most loyal companion to save lives and help diabetics around the world.  
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