Month: January 2020

When the nation’s largest electric utility preemptively shut off power last fall to prevent wildfires in California, customers lost more than just their lights — some lost their phones, too.Data from the Federal Communications Commission shows 874 cellphone towers were offline during an Oct. 27 power shutoff that affected millions of people. That included more than half of the cell towers in Marin County alone.
The outages mean people who depend solely on cellphones couldn’t call 911 or receive emergency notifications, compounding the dangers associated with an unprecedented power outage in an era dominated by wireless communication.
On Wednesday, some Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation that would require telecommunication companies to have at least 72 hours of back-up power for all cell phone towers in high-risk fire areas. Telecom companies would have to pay for it.
Sen. Mike McGuire said he wrote the bill after meeting with telecom company officials last summer, where he said they assured him they had plans to prevent widespread outages during a power shutoff.
“As we all know, this wasn’t true. They were wrong. And, candidly, lives were put at risk,” McGuire said.
The federal government has tried to mandate backup power for cell phone towers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But the industry successfully fought it.
“Do I believe we are in for a fight? Hell yes,” McGuire said, adding: “This is no longer a discussion about cost.”
McGuire announced his bill on the same day representatives from AT&T and Verizon were scheduled to testify before state lawmakers about the outages and ways to prevent them.  It’s the second time lawmakers will have hauled in private companies to account for the effects surrounding the widespread blackouts in the fall, the largest planned power outages in state history.
In November, lawmakers questioned executives from the state’s largest investor-owned utilities, including the leadership of troubled Pacific Gas & Electric, whose equipment has been blamed for sparking the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people and destroyed roughly 19,000 buildings. The company filed for bankruptcy last year.
Telecommunications outages have worsened as wildfires have become more common and more destructive. A report from the California Public Utilities Commission found 85,000 wireless customers and 160,000 wired customers lost service during the 2017 North Bay Fires.
Most recently, the FCC says up to 27% of Sonoma County’s wireless cell sites were offline during a fire in October.
 In advance comments to the legislative committee, California’s four largest wireless companies — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon — say they generally make sure their major telecommunication hubs have at least between 48 hours and 72 hours of on-site backup power. They use mobile generators at other sites, but said the generators don’t work at every cell tower.
Also, the companies said the electric company warns them about blackouts just two hours ahead of time, making it hard for them to get their mobile generators in place and to keep them fueled.
AT&T spokesman Steven Maviglio said the company is experienced in managing large-scale outages, but noted “the power companies’ decision to shut off power to millions of Californians in October was the largest event our state had ever seen.”
 “Today, we are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in our network resiliency to address these new challenges and will continue to work to ensure our customers have the connectivity they need,” Maviglio said.
Last year, the Legislature passed a law requiring telecommunications companies to report large outages to the Office of Emergency Services within one hour of discovering them. Officials are still developing regulations for that law.  
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Wearable devices no longer just count steps. From startups to long established brands, companies are now developing wearables that can help improve one’s health, and prevent and predict problems before they occur.Technology in wearable devices is a growing category at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.Training the brainFrench startup Urgotech has developed URGOnight, a wearable headband and app to help with sleep.  “Basically, your brain emits brain waves all the time, and some of those waves are clinically proven to be linked to your sleep quality,” said Guirec Le Lous, president of Urgotech.Wearing the headband with electrodes inside for 20 minutes, users can train the brain to emit sleep-inducing brain waves by playing a game on the mobile app. Jellyfish float on the screen. By focusing on the jellyfish, users can make them disappear and get points when the right brain waves are produced.Le Lous said this kind of feedback, also known as neurofeedback, can teach a person to produce sleep-inducing brain waves. He said a user will start sleeping better after 15 sessions. The $500 device will be available in the U.S. in June.Another brain-training wearable are Narbis smartglasses that attempt to improve focus and attention.”With technology, we’re finding that people are reducing their ability to pay attention over long periods of time,” said Devon Greco, CEO and founder of Narbis.  The smartglasses use algorithms adopted from NASA, with the original purpose of monitoring the attention of pilots as they fly a flight simulator or a plane, Greco said.The Narbis glasses have three sensors — one behind each ear, and one on top of the head — that measure the electrical activity coming from the brain. When a user is focused on a task such as homework, the glasses are clear. As the brain gets distracted, the lenses on the glasses darken and clear up again when the glasses sense the brain paying more attention. Training the brain for 30 minutes, several times a week, also uses the concept of positive and negative reinforcement of neurofeedback.”The brain will naturally want to see light. So, light is a natural reward and dark is a penalty. And so, the brain just kind of learns through trial and error what is good and what is bad,” explained Greco, who said clinical studies of a dozen people have found that after 20 sessions, users experienced an improvement in attention.Greco said the ideal age for the smartglasses is between six to 17 years old. The company plans to begin shipping the $590 Narbis glasses in March.Watch-type wearablesMany wearable devices showcased at CES look like watches but can do much more.  They include IEVA’s 500 euro smartwatch, available later this year. The Time-C monitors the user’s environment, including temperature, humidity, sun exposure, noise and pollution. Linked to an app, it provides personalized beauty creams based on the environment.The ScanWatch from the French company Withings monitors the user’s heart rate and can detect an irregular heartbeat. Thesmart watch can also sense sleep apnea.”It can detect the saturation of oxygen in your blood, and detect the drops during your night,” explained Victoria Fabre, the company’s U.S. marketing manager.Starting at $249, ScanWatch will be available in the U.S. and Europe later this year, with the possibility of expanding to the Asia market.Omron, maker of  blood pressure monitors, has developed a wearable device, the Heart Guide, which looks like a watch. The band around the wrist can inflate and deflate, similar to how a traditional blood pressure monitor works around the arm. The monitor requires the user to raise the wrist next to the heart, and is convenient for use throughout the day.”We really wanted people to be able to go out and take their blood pressure at work, visiting friends and family. So, we just want to make sure that you can take it (blood pressure) anytime, anywhere,” said Jeff Ray, Omron’s executive director of product strategy.The device also monitors activity level, steps, calories, distance, and tracks sleep.  With a corresponding app, it can send a report of a user’s vitals to the doctor by email.Wearable for the young and oldBabies can get a wearable on their diaper. Launched at CES for U.S. residents is Lumi by Pampers. The $349 baby-monitoring system includes a sensor, camera and app and two packs of diapers.  The sensor attaches to a diaper with Velcro and tracks the baby’s sleep.”High motion is awake, slow motion is asleep,” said Mandy Treeby, who leads product development and communications for Lumi by Pampers.The reusable sensor also detects a wet diaper when the wetness indicator strip on the Pampers diaper changes color. The wearable device connects to an app or the camera and sends data to the cloud so parents and caregivers can get real-time information about the baby’s routine. The sensor lasts for three months and is $49 to replace.For the elderly, CarePredict has a wearable that can help predict potential health problems aimed at seniors who live in their own homes.Founder Satish Movva said he built the company because of his fiercely independent aging parents.”They had a lot of health issues that caused a lot of unpredictability in my life, because I never knew what was going to happen,” Movva said.The CarePredict device is worn around the wrist of the user’s dominant arm. With machine-learning and artificial intelligence, the device learns its user’s unique gestures and behaviors over the course of two weeks.”It can track all of the gestures of the dominant arm,” Movva said. “It knows when they’re lifting a fork to the mouth or a chopstick to the mouth. It knows when they’re drinking, when they’re brushing teeth, when they’re brushing hair. And it knows where they are in the home.”He added,  “Anytime there’s a decline or a deviation in these activities and behaviors, it usually precedes a health issue. So for example, somebody going into depression will stop taking a bath, will stop brushing their hair, will stay away from bright lights and sunlight, will stay in their own room.”When a behavior changes, the device will notify loved ones through a mobile app, which can give adult children peace of mind.Available in group homes since 2017, the $449 device is now available for individual home use with a battery that can be changed without having to take off the device.  
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Wearable devices no longer just count your steps, companies have now developed wearables that can do much, much more.
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The first batch of space-baked cookies is back on Earth, along with muscle-bound “mighty” mice and other space station experiments.SpaceX provided the ride home Tuesday, a month after its Dragon capsule arrived at the International Space Station. The capsule parachuted into the Pacific, returning 3,800 pounds of gear.Researchers want to inspect the handful of chocolate chip cookies baked by astronauts in a special Zero G oven just in time for Christmas. The oven launched to the space station in November, so astronauts could pop in pre-made cookie dough provided by DoubleTree. A spokesman for the hotel chain said five cookies were baked up there, one at a time. The company plans to share details of this first-of-its-kind experiment in the coming weeks.”We made space cookies and milk for Santa this year,” NASA astronaut Christina Koch tweeted late last month from the space station, posing with one of the individually wrapped cookies.Scientists also are getting back 40 mice that flew up in early December, including eight genetically engineered to have twice the normal muscle mass. Some of the non-mighty mice bulked up in orbit for the muscle study; others will pack it on once they’re back in the lab.”We’re anxious to welcome the mice home! ” Dr. Se-Jin Lee of the Jackson Laboratory in Connecticut said in an email.
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The nation’s largest consumer electronics show on Tuesday hosts Ivanka Trump as a keynote speaker — a choice that drew scorn from many women in technology.The annual CES tech gathering in Las Vegas has long taken criticism over diversity issues. In recent years, the show’s organizer, the Consumer Technology Association, has invited more women to speak and sought to curb some of the show’s more sexist aspects, such as scantily clad “booth babes” hired to draw attention of the mostly male attendees.FILE – Ivanka Trump, the daughter and senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Rabat, Morocco, Nov. 8, 2019.But for critics and activists who have long pushed for broader recognition of the less-heralded women, the inclusion of President Donald Trump’s daughter, who is also a White House adviser, sends exactly the wrong message.”Ivanka is not a woman in tech,” tweeted Brianna Wu, a video game developer who is running for Congress in Massachusetts. “She’s not a CEO. She has no background. It’s a lazy attempt to emulate diversity — but like all emulation it’s not quite the real thing.”Ivanka Trump will appear in a question-and-answer session with CTA President Gary Shapiro. She is expected to discuss company strategies to retrain workers and develop math and science education programs. In the administration, she has worked on skills-training initiatives. Companies including Google have said they will train people for technology jobs as part of a White House initiative.’Focus on jobs’Shapiro told The Associated Press that Ivanka Trump is fighting for workers at a time when robots are filling warehouses and factories and self-driving vehicles are worrying truck drivers.”We’ve had politicians speak before, cabinet secretaries and others who’ve come in,” Shapiro said. “So, I think wait until you hear what she has to say and listen to it because the fact is that there is a focus on jobs.”Ivanka Trump said job training and workforce development are key parts of the administration’s economic agenda. “I’m excited to discuss how the Trump administration is championing these shared goals,” she said in a statement emailed Tuesday.Many people who tweeted the hashtag #BoycottCES on Tuesday in protest of Trump’s appearance also took issue with the administration’s border detention policies and various actions of the president himself.The technology industry has especially important issues pending with the U.S. government, including antitrust investigations into Facebook and Google, the trade war with China, immigration, election security and misinformation on social media.Government officials have long made regular appearances at CES. This year, for instance, the speaker roster includes both Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao and Secretary of Energy Dan Bouillette. Other female speakers at the conference include Meg Whitman of video streaming startup Quibi and Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal.Vocal criticsIvanka Trump is “taking this slot at this conference where women have been saying for so long, ‘Hey, we are being overlooked,'” said Rachel Sklar, a tech commentator and founder of a professional network for women. “The whole category of women being overlooked are still being overlooked.””Clearly they are not putting much effort into finding women in tech who can speak,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst with Creative Strategies, who is at CES.Last year, CES caused an uproar when it revoked an innovation award presented to a female-led sex device company. CES reversed its decision, and has allowed sex tech into the show for a one-year trial. Conference organizers also brought in an official “equality partner,” The Female Quotient, to help ensure gender diversity.”Was there nobody else available? Seriously?” asked Ti Chang, co-founder of the wearable vibrator company Crave. Chang said Trump’s experience running a clothing brand is a bad fit for CES and its focus on innovation and technology.”I don’t understand,” she said. “I would love to know what their rationale was.”
 
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A new cellular network just for kids? The company behind it, Gabb Wireless, promises their phones help protect kids from the dangers of smartphones. Deana Mitchell dials in.
 
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Facebook says it is banning “deepfake” videos, the false but realistic clips created with artificial intelligence and sophisticated tools, as it steps up efforts to fight online manipulation.The social network said late Monday that it’s beefing up its policies to remove videos edited or synthesized in ways that aren’t apparent to the average person, and which could dupe someone into thinking the video’s subject said something he or she didn’t actually say.Created by artificial intelligence or machine learning, deepfakes combine or replace content to create images that can be almost impossible to tell are not authentic.“While these videos are still rare on the internet, they present a significant challenge for our industry and society as their use increases,” Facebook’s vice president of global policy management, Monika Bickert, said in a blog post.However, she said the new rules won’t include parody or satire, or clips edited just to change the order of words. The exceptions underscore the balancing act Facebook and other social media services face in their struggle to stop the spread of online misinformation and “fake news” while also respecting free speech and fending off allegations of censorship.The U.S. tech company has been grappling with how to handle the rise of deepfakes after facing criticism last year for refusing to remove a doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slurring her words, which was viewed more than 3 million times. Experts said the crudely edited clip was more of a “cheap fake” than a deepfake.Then, a pair of artists posted fake footage of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg showing him gloating over his one-man domination of the world. Facebook also left that clip online. The company said at the time that neither video violated its policies.The problem of altered videos is taking on increasing urgency as experts and lawmakers try to figure out how to prevent deepfakes from being used to interfere with U.S. presidential elections in November.Facebook said any videos that don’t meet existing standards for removal can still be reviewed by independent third-party fact-checkers. Those deemed false will be flagged as such to anyone trying to share or view them, which Bickert said was a better approach than just taking them down.“If we simply removed all manipulated videos flagged by fact-checkers as false, the videos would still be available elsewhere on the internet or social media ecosystem,” Bickert said. “By leaving them up and labeling them as false, we’re providing people with important information and context.” 
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Sex tech will grace the CES gadget show in Las Vegas this week after organizers endured scorn for revoking an innovation award to a sex device company led by a female founder.
                   
CES will allow space for sex tech companies as a one-year trial. The companies will be grouped in the health and wellness section of the Sands Expo, an official, but secondary CES location, one geared toward startups.
                   
Lora DiCarlo, a startup that pushed for changes after organizers revoked its award, will showcase its Ose robotic “personal massager.” It’s one of a dozen companies at the show focused on vibrators, lube dispensers and other sex tech products. Founders of these startups say their products are about empowerment and wellness for women, something they say has often been overlooked in tech.
                   
The historically male-dominated tech trade show has received criticism in past years for having an all-male lineup of speakers and for previously allowing scantily clad “booth babes,” fostering a “boys’ club” reputation.
                   
Besides allowing sex tech, CES organizers brought in an official “equality partner,” The Female Quotient, to help ensure gender diversity. The Female Quotient, which trains companies in equality practices, will hold a conference for women during the show, which formally opens Tuesday and runs through Friday.
                   
“It’s been a process,” said Gary Shapiro, the head of the Consumer Technology Association, which puts on CES.
                   
It’s been a longer process for many sex tech companies to convince investors that they are part of a growing trend that has enough customers. Much of the push has come from the startups’ female founders and from younger consumers who talk more openly about sexuality.
                   
Sex tech has existed in some form for decades. But the gates really began to open in 2016, said Andrea Barrica, founder of sex education site O.school. That year, several other “fem tech” companies made progress in areas such as menstruation and menopause. Those paved the way for sex tech to grow and get investors interested.
                   
“Larger institutions are starting to take note, all the way from VC firms to large Fortune 100 companies,” said Barrica, who recently published the book “Sextech Revolution: The Future of Sexual Wellness” Large institutions like CES had no choice but to look at sex tech, she said.
                   
The journey hasn’t been easy. Sex tech founders, many of them women, recount being turned down by dozens of investors. They faced decency arguments and entrenched corporate standards that equated them with porn.
                   
But investors are becoming more receptive, said Cindy Gallop, a former advertising executive turned sex tech entrepreneur and founder of the website MakeLoveNotPorn.
                   
“It’s entirely because of our refusal to allow the business world to put us down,” she said.
                   
Founders insist that their devices _ ranging from vibrators to lube dispensers to accessories _ have effects outside the bedroom.
                   
“Sexual health and wellness is health and wellness,” said Lora DiCarlo, CEO and founder of the company of the same name. “It does way more than just pleasure. It’s immediately connected to stress relief, to better sleep to empowerment and confidence.”
                   
DiCarlo’s Ose $290 device has gotten $3 million worth of advance sales, bolstered in part by the attention it received after CES organizers overturned a decision by an independent panel of judges to give the vibrator a prestigious Innovation Honoree Award in the robotics and drone category. The organizers, CTA, told the company it reserved the right to rescind awards for devices deemed “immoral, obscene, indecent, profane or not in keeping with CTA’s image.”
                   
DiCarlo and other female founders pushed back for banning them but allowing humanoid sex robots meant to serve men the previous year.
                   
Following criticism, CES organizers ultimately  reinstated the award and apologized. A few months later, the show announced policy changes such as a dress code to prevent skimpy outfits and new “Innovation for All” sessions with senior diversity officials.
                   
Ose began shipping to customers this month. DiCarlo said the company is planning to new devices, including less expensive options.
                   
Sex tech companies still face major barriers to growth.
                   
Polly Rodriguez, CEO of sexual wellness company Unbound, said the company is profitable and customers are more open about buying products than they once were. But she said she still faces roadblocks advertising on social media, and many traditional investors snub the company.
                   
“Things are better, but there’s just still this genuine fear of female sexuality more broadly within the institutional side of technology,” she said.
                   
And while Gallop offered to speak at CES, conference organizers declined, saying sex tech was not a part of its conference programming.
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