Silicon

Facebook Inc will add a feature to its Messenger app Monday to allow users to share their locations, the company said, ramping up competition with tools offered by Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google Maps.

The company has found that one of the most used phrases on Messenger as people talk to friends and family is “How far away are you?” or some variation, Stan Chudnovsky, head of product for Messenger, said in an interview.

“It happens to be what people are saying, what they’re interested in the most,” he said.

Sharing location information will be optional, he said, but it will also be live, so that once a user shares the information with a friend, the friend will be able to watch the user’s movement for up to 60 minutes.

Messenger was once part of the core Facebook smartphone app, but the company broke it out as a separate app in 2014 and has since invested in frequent changes to build a service distinct from the massive social network.

Google Maps said last week that it was adding a similar feature, an attempt to boost engagement on a product of increasing strategic importance to that company.

The close proximity of the announcements tells Facebook “that we’re working on the right things,” Chudnovsky said.

The Messages app on Apple’s iPhone has such a feature, too.

Facebook has been testing its change in Mexico, he said. It was ready as long ago as October, he added, but the company worked on it for five more months to minimize the impact on the battery life of phones.
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Driverless vehicles operated by Uber Technologies Inc. were back on the road in San Francisco on Monday after one of its self-driving cars crashed in Arizona, the ride-hailing company said.

Uber’s autonomous vehicles in Arizona and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, remained grounded but were expected to be operating again soon, according to a spokeswoman for the company, who refused to be identified.

“We are resuming our development operations in San Francisco this morning,” she said in an email.

Uber’s San Francisco program is currently in development mode. It has two cars registered with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, but is not transporting passengers.

The spokeswoman said because of this, the company felt confident in putting the cars back on the road while it investigates the collision in Arizona.

On Friday, Uber suspended its pilot program in the three states. A human-driven vehicle “failed to yield” to an Uber vehicle while making a turn in Tempe, Arizona, said Josie Montenegro, a spokeswoman for the city’s police department.

“The vehicles collided, causing the autonomous vehicle to roll onto its side,” Montenegro said in an email. “There were no serious injuries.”

Two “safety” drivers were in the front seats of the Uber car, which was in self-driving mode at the time of the crash, Uber said on Friday, a standard requirement for its self-driving vehicles. The back seat was unoccupied.

Photos and a video posted on Twitter by Fresco News showed a Volvo SUV flipped on its side after an apparent collision involving two other, slightly damaged cars. Uber said the images appeared to be from the Tempe crash scene.

 

 

 

 
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Islamic State propagandists are seeking to capitalize on last week’s terror attack in London, which left five people dead and 40 injured, by flooding YouTube with hundreds of violent recruitment videos.

The online propaganda offensive comes as Britain demands social media companies scrub their sites of jihadist postings.

Amber Rudd, the country’s interior minister, has vowed to “call time” on internet firms allowing terrorists “a place to hide” and has summoned some of the leading social media companies, including Facebook and Twitter, for what is being dubbed by British officials as “showdown talks” later this week.

Rudd says she is determined to stop extremists “using social media as their platform” for recruitment and for operational needs.

Britain’s security services are in a standoff with WhatsApp, which has refused to allow them access to the encrypted message the London attacker sent three minutes before he used an SUV to mow down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and stabbed to death a policeman outside the House of Commons.

British security services are powerless to read that final message, which might cast light on whether the attack was a “lone wolf” or one aided and directed by others. Police investigators believe the terrorist acted alone and have seen no evidence that he was associated with IS or al-Qaida.

WhatsApp, which has a billion users worldwide, employs “end to end encryption” for messages, which the company says prevents even its own technicians from reading people’s messages.

Officials want voluntary action

Rudd and other government ministers have launched a media onslaught, saying they are considering legislation to require online companies to take down extremist material. They argue this wouldn’t be necessary if the companies recognized their community responsibilities.

Rudd told the BBC that Facebook, Google and other companies should understand they are not just technology businesses, but also publishing platforms. “We have to have a situation where we can have our security services get into the terrorists’ communications,” she argued. “There should be no place for terrorists to hide.”

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson joined in the condemnation of social media and online companies. “I think it’s disgusting,” he told The Sunday Times. “They need to stop just making money out of prurient violent material.”

At a security conference last week in the United States, Johnson called for action.

“We are going to have to engage not just militarily, but also to stop the stuff on the internet that is corrupting and polluting so many people,” he said. “This is something that the internet companies and social media companies need to think about. They need to do more to take that stuff off their media — the incitements, the information about how to become a terrorist, the radicalizing sermons and messages. That needs to come down.”

Recruiting criminals

The furor over extremist use of the internet was fueled Monday by front-page articles in the Times and Daily Mail newspapers highlighting the IS propaganda videos posted on YouTube since last Wednesday’s slaughter in the British capital. The high-definition videos, some of which contained references to the London attack, include gory scenes of beheadings and “caliphate violence” carried out by child adherents of the terror group.

U.S. and European officials have long complained online companies are, in effect, aiding and abetting terrorism. A year ago in January, much of the U.S. national security leadership of the Obama administration sat down with Silicon Valley chiefs to discuss jihadist use of the internet to recruit and radicalize people and plot attacks.

Also last year, British spy chief, Robert Hannigan, singled out messaging apps as especially worrisome for the security services, saying they had become “the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals — precisely because they are highly encrypted.”

Some cooperation

After initial resistance to complaints from Western governments, Facebook, Google and Twitter have in recent months been more cooperative with authorities and have removed large amounts of extremist material. Twitter said in the second half of 2016 it suspended 376,890 accounts for violations related to promotion of terrorism.

But some services have resisted providing governments with encryption keys, or so-called back doors.

Apple has developed encryption keys that message users can use that are not possessed by the company. Apple’s chief executive, Timothy Cook, argued last year, “If you put a key under the mat for the cops, a burglar can find it, too.”

Silicon Valley chiefs say they fear violations of privacy and their priority is their customers, not national security, an argument that has resonated since former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the extent of electronic surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Last year, WhatsApp was blocked several times in Brazil for failing to hand over information relating to criminal investigations. 

Messages sent on a rival service by Telegram are also encrypted, but after bad publicity and immense pressure from Western governments, the company does provide a backdoor for security and law-enforcement agencies.

Not that access to encrypted communications always helps.

Sunday, it emerged that German police knew the Christmas market attacker in Berlin who drove a truck into a crowd of shoppers was planning a suicide attack. Police had intercepted his Telegram messages nine months before the attack.

A police recommendation that he be deported was declined by state government prosecutors because they feared the courts would reject the request.
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The Qatar Investment Authority, the Gulf Arab state’s acquisitive sovereign wealth fund, is setting up an office in San Francisco to manage its growing portfolio in the United States, the CEO of QIA said in London on Monday.

“Soon we will be opening an office in the Silicon Valley in San Francisco,” Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed al-Thani told reporters at an investment conference.

The fund is one of the most active sovereign investors in the world, snapping up stakes in everything from real estate to luxury goods.

Much of its activity has traditionally been in Europe but the fund has said it is looking to diversify into Asia and the United States, announcing last year a plan to spend $20 billion in Asian investments over the next five years.
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President Donald Trump is set to announce a new White House office run by his son-in-law that will seek to overhaul government functions using ideas from the business sector.

A senior administration official said Trump on Monday will announce the White House Office of American Innovation. The official sought anonymity to discuss the office in advance of the formal rollout.

The plans for the office were first reported by The Washington Post.

The innovation office will be led by Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to Trump, and will report directly to the president.

Among those working on the effort are National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, Dina Powell, senior counselor to the president for economic initiatives and deputy national security adviser, Chris Liddell, assistant to the president for strategic initiatives and Reed Cordish, assistant to the president for intragovernmental and technology initiatives. All have extensive business experience.

Trump is readying to announce the new office at a low point in his young administration, days after the Republican bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” imploded in the House of Representatives, revealing deep divides within GOP and fraying tensions at the White House.

This effort has been developing since shortly after the inauguration, the official said. The group has been meeting since then and started talking to CEOs from various sectors about ways to make changes to federal programs. Areas they hope to tackle include overhauling Veterans’ Affairs, improving workforce development and targeting opioid addiction.

Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who is married to Kushner and has a West Wing office but no official job, will get involved on issues she is focused on, such as workforce development.
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These days, the only words most people see are typed. Many young people never learn cursive handwriting, but it is making a comeback. Thousands of school students around the country are learning to write in longhand. At one elementary school in New York City, teachers and students seem excited about the elegance, but also the educational power, of cursive handwriting. VOA’s Faiza Elmasry has more. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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One day you may be carrying your own drone everywhere you go. A drone has been developed to take selfies that is so thin it can be put into your pants pocket. The Selfly, as it is called, is attached to a smartphone that fits into the phone’s case. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us more.
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Uber Technologies Inc suspended its pilot program for driverless cars on Saturday (March 25th) after a vehicle equipped with the nascent technology crashed on an Arizona roadway, the ride-hailing company and local police said.

The accident, the latest involving a self-driving vehicle operated by one of several companies experimenting with autonomous vehicles, caused no serious injuries, Uber said.

Even so, the company said it was grounding driverless cars  involved in a pilot program in Arizona, Pittsburgh and San Francisco pending the outcome of investigation into the crash on Friday evening in Tempe.

The accident occurred when the driver of a second vehicle “failed to yield” to the Uber vehicle while making a turn, said Josie Montenegro, a spokeswoman for the Tempe Police Department.

Two ‘safety’ drivers were in the front seats of the Uber car, which was in self-driving mode at the time of the crash, Uber said in an email, a standard requirement for its self-driving vehicles. The back seat was empty.

Photos and a video posted on Twitter by Fresco News, a service that sells content to news outlets, showed a Volvo SUV flipped on its side after an apparent collision involving two other, slightly damaged cars. Uber said the images appeared to be from the Tempe crash scene.

When Uber launched the pilot program in Pittsburgh last year, it said that driverless cars “require human intervention in many conditions, including bad weather.” It also said the new technology had the potential to reduce the number of traffic accidents in the country.

The accident is not the first time a self-driving car has been involved in a collision. A driver of a Tesla Motors Inc  Model S car operating in autopilot mode was killed in a collision with a truck in Williston, Florida in 2016.

A self-driving vehicle operated by Alphabet Inc’s  Google was involved in a crash last year in Mountain View, California, striking a bus while attempting to navigate around an obstacle.

The collision comes days after Uber’s former president Jeff Jones quit less than seven months after joining the San Francisco-based company, the latest in a string of high-level executives who have departed in recent months.

In February, Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving car unit sued Uber and its Otto autonomous trucking subsidiary, alleging theft of proprietary sensor technology.
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A Chinese court has ruled in favor of Apple in design patent disputes between the Cupertino, California company and a domestic phone-maker, overturning a ban on selling iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus phones in China, Xinhua news agency reported.

Last May, a Beijing patent regulator ordered Apple’s Chinese subsidiary and a local retailer Zoomflight to stop selling the iPhones after Shenzhen Baili Marketing Services lodged a complaint, claiming that the patent for the design of its mobile phone 100c was being infringed by the iPhone sales.

Apple and Zoomflight took the Beijing Intellectual Property Office’s ban to court.

The Beijing Intellectual Property Court on Friday revoked the ban, saying Apple and Zoomflight did not violate Shenzhen Baili’s design patent for 100c phones.

The court ruled that the regulator did not follow due procedures in ordering the ban while there was no sufficient proof to claim the designs constituted a violation of intellectual property rights.

Representatives of Beijing Intellectual Property Office and Shenzhen Baili said they would take time to decide whether to appeal the ruling, according to Xinhua.

In a related ruling, the same court denied a request by Apple to demand stripping Shenzhen Baili of its design patent for 100c phones.

Apple first filed the request to the Patent Reexamination Board of State Intellectual Property Office. The board rejected the request, but Apple lodged a lawsuit against the rejection.

The Beijing Intellectual Property Court on Friday ruled to maintain the board’s decision. It is unclear if Apple will appeal.
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Khmerload, a Cambodian entertainment news website modeled after the American media giant Buzzfeed, has become the country’s first local tech startup to attract the backing of Silicon Valley investors.

A $200,000 investment to be exact.

The money came from 500 Startups, a global venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator founded by PayPal and Google alumni, Dave McClure and Christine Tsai, who took notice of the website, launched five years ago.

The grant pushed the company’s value to more than $1 million, according to In Vichet, Khmerload’s founder and CEO.

 

Several sites, and growing

Vichet, also the CEO and founder of Cambodia’s popular Little Fashion ecommerce site, said he convinced investors that Khmerload had growth potential, enough for a return on the investment.

“We showed them that we are in the top three websites in Cambodia,” said Vichet, who did his graduate work in economics at the University of Michigan. “We also have traction in Myanmar, where we recently expanded. So they see that we have done a lot while already generating revenue. They saw our potential.”

Khailee Ng, the Southeast Asia-based managing partner of 500 Startups, said Khmerload’s probable growth extends far beyond Cambodia’s borders.

“Getting to the top media position behind Facebook and Google’s properties with such a lean budget is something not many entrepreneurs across Southeast Asia have done,” Ng said.

“I’ve actually never seen anything quite like it. To be profitable, yet have increasing traffic growth rates? This investment decision is easy,” he added. 

The $1 million may not seem like much compared with the $1.7 billion value of Buzzfeed, until measured against Cambodia’s per capita income of $1,070, according to the latest World Bank estimate.

More Cambodians on internet

The 500 Startups grant comes as more and more Cambodians are using the internet and Facebook, according to an Asia Foundation study that found most go online exclusively through their smartphones. This mimics trends for sites like Buzzfeed.

Khmerload has gained more than 17 million page views per month in Cambodia, allowing it to expand into Myanmar last year, opening a sister site, Myanmarload, which already generates about 20 million page views per month.

It has also carried out a successful pilot in Indonesia, said Vichet, and was incorporated in Singapore as Mediaload.

However, Khmerload’s Buzzfeed-style approach of viral content and quick clicks has led to criticism.

Content diversifying

Vichet admits that the site originally relied heavily on tabloid and entertainment content or, as he put it, “nonpolitical content,” an important distinction in a nation where the constitution provides for a free press, but where the state closely monitors the media and — one way or another — controls its content.

But as the site has grown to reach millions, he says, it has diversified to include more informative content, including educational materials and technology news.

And 500 Startups is no doubt aware of Cambodians growing embrace of the online world. In 2000, an estimated 6,000 Cambodians used the internet. Today, the company estimates 5 million active users in Cambodia.

Tech startups are also on the rise. About 120 have sprung up in Cambodia, along with some 10 co-working spaces in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, according to Thul Rithy, founder of Phnom Penh-based co-working spaces SmallWorld and Emerald Hub.

Mediaload’s next moves include expansions into Vietnam and Laos, Vichet said. He’s also keen to help other Cambodians obtain Silicon Valley investment.

“Even with a good idea, it is really hard for Cambodians to get an investment from [Silicon Valley], as there is no precedent of success,” Vichet said. “I hope I can deliver good returns to them so that in the future they will invest in other Cambodian technology startups.”

This report was originally published by VOA’s Khmer Service.
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What happens when a piano is combined with technology?

“Kids or anybody could learn how to play the piano really properly from the best musicians in the world,” said Mischa Dohler, composer and professor of Wireless Communications at King’s College London.

‘Could we digitize skills?’

Dohler’s aim is to build a database that records the movements of a piano player’s hands with the help of a special sensing glove that tracks every movement of the musician’s joints. Once the data is collected, a piano student can then wear another glove that can train the student’s hands.

“You could imagine this so-called exoskeleton that you can put on your hand. It will pressurize the hands and the joints, and will move it gently at the beginning, and nudge essentially the body into the right shape and in the right way of moving your hand,” Dohler said.

It is an example of what Dohler calls the “Internet of Skills” that he is demonstrating at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition in Los Angeles.

“We use digital today to negotiate for jobs. We use LinkedIn, emails, etc., but then to execute the work, we still need to drive. We need to fly. We need to walk. So I was thinking, ‘Could we virtualize it? Could we digitize skills?’”

Health care application

Another application for the “Internet of Skills” is health care.

Motivated by the Ebola crisis in Africa, Dohler is trying to develop a way for doctors to treat a patient thousands of miles away, especially in remote areas where medical skill is lacking, where virtual reality and low-cost technology can link the doctor and patient in a way never before possible.

“What I’m trying to do is first of all give the surgeons back the feeling of touch, so he feels what he does inside the body; and the second thing is, I want him to be able to have this console somewhere in another hospital. So the only thing we’re doing is the cable between the console and the patient and make it longer and make it an internet,” Dohler said.

It is only possible if large amounts of data can travel very quickly, more specifically, 10 milliseconds for action and reaction to occur. Companies are already developing hardware to move information faster.

Depends on data, speed

“It all came about with video. The way we view content today is very different from the way we viewed it before, and getting content to everybody, whether it’s on their iPhone or their android devices or on their PCs everywhere takes the underlying network,” said Eve Griliches, product line manager at Cisco Systems.

She said many new networks that transport and transmit growing amounts of data are being built by private networks.

“Everybody has a stake in the game now. Everybody has a stake,” she said. “And the beauty about getting the content to everybody, more so the other step, is as we’re opening up the networks and creating the sort of open source society in the networking area, it allows people to build on it,” Griliches added.

As technology continues to catch up with what the brain can imagine, Dohler envisions the “Internet of Skills” democratizing labor in about a decade, just as the internet has made knowledge available to all.
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As the internet continues to drive innovative ideas, some scientists envision a world where people can digitize their skills and do their jobs from anywhere in the world with the next generation of optical and wireless technology. How this idea is executed was demonstrated at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition in Los Angeles. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
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A message of resilience posted online in the wake of the London terrorist attack Wednesday was read in Parliament, it was mentioned on the BBC, and it went viral online.

Unfortunately, the hand written message, which appeared in a photo of a whiteboard commonly seen in the London Underground, was a hoax.

The message read: “All terrorists are politely reminded that THIS IS LONDON and whatever you do to us, we will drink tea and jolly well carry on. Thank you.”

One member of Parliament read the message to Prime Minister Theresa May, who then called the sign a “wonderful tribute” that “encapsulated everything everybody in this house has said today.”

An announcer on the BBC’s Radio 4 recited the sign’s message on the air, while other journalists and politicians shared the image online, The Washington Post reported.

Turns out the sign, which looked quite authentic, was created using one of the many sign generators available online.

Whiteboards are common in the London Underground, usually giving service information and occasionally displaying a joke or something meant to be inspirational.
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The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has technology capable of infecting “factory fresh” iPhones and has been bugging the devices since at least 2008, WikiLeaks claimed Thursday.

In a statement released on its website, the whistleblowing organization said the technology developed by the CIA’s Embedded Development Branch (EDB) was designed to be physically installed onto new iPhones.

“It is likely that many CIA physical access attacks have infected the targeted organization’s supply chain including by interdicting mail orders and other shipments [opening, infecting, and resending] leaving the United States or otherwise,” the statement read.

Another alleged CIA tool, exposed in the WikiLeaks release Thursday, has the ability to execute code from a USB stick while a Mac computer is still booting up, allowing a user to bypass firmware passwords and load the attack software.

Thursday’s release is the latest batch of documents published by WikiLeaks alleging to show espionage programs used by the U.S. spy agency.  A previous WikiLeaks release purported to expose a massive hacking program employed by the CIA.

Among the revelations in the previous release came accusations that the CIA possesses a library of hacking malware employed by other states, including Russia, that it can use to leave behind false “fingerprints” to cover up its exploits and mislead investigators.

A spokesman for the CIA said at the time the agency does not comment “on the authenticity of purported intelligence documents.”
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Google Maps users will soon be able to broadcast their movements to friends and family — the latest test of how much privacy people are willing to sacrifice in an era of rampant sharing.

The location-monitoring feature will begin rolling out Wednesday in an update to the Google Maps mobile app, which is already installed on most of the world’s smartphones. It will also be available on personal computers.

Google believes the new tool will be a more convenient way for people to let someone know where they are without having to text or call them.  The Mountain View, California, company has set up the controls so individuals can decide with whom they want to share their whereabouts and for how long — anywhere from a few minutes to indefinitely.

But location sharing in one of the world’s most popular apps could cause friction in marriages and other relationships if one partner demands to know where the other is at all times. Similar tensions could arise if parents insist their teenagers turn on the location-sharing option before they go out.

Some share concerns

It could also be turned into a way to stalk someone entangled in an abusive relationship, warned Ruth Glenn, executive director for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “It has the potential to be another tool in an abuser’s toolkit,” she said.

Similar tracking is already available on other apps; Glympse, founded by former Microsoft employees, has offered this function for years. Although it isn’t as wide-ranging, Apple also offers a tracking option called “Find My Friends” on its iPhone, iPad and Watch.

That’s one of the reasons Google isn’t expecting a lot of complaints about adding the option to Maps, especially since everyone can decide when to turn it on and who can monitor them.

“We don’t feel like we are changing the game,” said Jen Fitzpatrick, Google’s vice president of maps.

Tracking only a tap away

Maps users will be able to activate the location-sharing feature by tapping a button near the search bar and then picking a person from their contact list to text with the information. If the recipient doesn’t have the Google Maps app on their phone, it will text them a link to open the location on the map in a browser.

The settings also allow users to determine how long their movements can be tracked each time a location is shared. If no time limit is selected, Google will periodically send people email reminders that they’re still sharing their location, a step that Glenn said may help anyone who didn’t know an abusive partner was still following them.
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The cost for individual homes in the U.S. to “go solar” has dropped by more than 60 percent over the last decade.

Those low costs helped convince more than a million Americans to install solar panels on their roofs.

Now schools are beginning to get in on the benefits. One of them is the school system in Fremont, Indiana.

The residents of this small town in America’s upper Midwest have always relied on the sun to warm their fields and draw tourists to their lakes. Now school superintendent William Stitt said they’re counting on it to power their schools.

“The technology has advanced so much in the last couple of years that it’s become more energy efficient, more cost effective for schools to get solar energy,” Stitt said.

Start-up cost

Construction of the solar project will cost $3 million. But when finished, it will completely power the elementary, middle and high school buildings. It may generate so much electricity, that the school will be able to sell some back to the power company at a profit.

The system will work through several rows of 3,000-4,000 panels each. They will be located in a special 2.5 hectare solar field behind the middle school.

The district has to lease the equipment from the local power company for 20 years, at a fixed rate.

But Kim Quick, facility director, said that even with that added cost, the schools should save money because the panels should last 40 years.

“[It] is going to cost us approximately the same amount we’re paying for utilities today. So that cost is never going to increase for the next 20 years,” Quick said. “So if the power company comes in next year and says, ‘We want to increase utilities 6 percent,’ we’re going to pay the same we’re paying today 20 years from now.”

Free electricity, eventually

In 20 years, the school district will own the equipment outright, meaning it won’t pay anything for electricity.

Since the panels are always “on,” Quick said the district will save additional money by banking the unused electricity that’s generated when school is not in session.

“These work year-round. Even in a full moon they will produce electricity,” he said.

Just 3 percent of the nation’s 125,000 schools use some form of solar energy. While not all can use solar power cost-effectively, a recent report by the Solar Foundation found that 72,000 US schools could save money with solar.

Schools could install panels on their roofs or elevate a field of panels over a parking lot. Those innovations would save most schools an average of $1 million over 30 years.

Educational component

Going solar also offers schools an educational component. It provides teachers opportunities to incorporate lessons in science, technology, engineering, and math into the curriculum.

All three schools in the Fremont system will have a live display module that kids can visit daily to learn how much energy is being used and saved.

If all goes according to plan, Fremont School District’s new solar field will be up and running by mid-summer. Superintendent Stitt is already looking further ahead.

“I’d love the community and the kids in 40 years to go, ‘Man, they made a great decision 40 years ago by creating this solar project!’ ” he said.
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The cost for individual homes to go solar has dropped by more than 60 percent over the last decade. Those low costs helped convince more than a million private homes to install solar panels. Now schools are beginning to get in on the benefits. Erika Celeste reports from Fremont, Indiana.
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Google wants to make it easier for you to find answers and recommendations on smartphones without having to think about what to ask its search engine.

Its new feature, called “shortcuts,” will appear as a row of icons below the Google search box. Where now you’d have to ponder and then speak or type a request, the shortcuts will let you tap the icons to get the latest weather, movie times, sports scores, restaurant recommendations and other common requests.

The shortcuts will begin appearing Tuesday in updates to Google’s app for iPhones, Android phones and its mobile website. The Android app will also include various tools such as a currency converter, a language translator and an ATM locator, which you can also summon with a tap. Those tools may eventually make it to the iPhone as well, although Google says it doesn’t know when.

These shortcuts are the latest step in Google’s quest to turn its search engine into a secondary brain that anticipates people’s needs and desires. The search engine gleans these insights by analyzing your past requests and, when you allow it, tracking your location, a practice that periodically raises privacy concerns about Google’s power to create digital profiles of its users.

Based on the knowledge that Google already has accumulated, its shortcuts feature may already list your favorite sports teams or recommend nearby restaurants serving cuisines you prefer.

Adapting to audience

Shortcuts also show how Google’s search engine has been adapting to its audience, now that smartphones have become the primary way millions of people stay connected to the internet.

Since more than half of requests for Google’s search engine now come from smartphones, the Mountain View, California, company has adapted its services to smaller screens, touch keyboards and apps instead of websites.

Early in that process, Google tweaked its search engine to answer many requests with factual summaries at the top of its results page, a change from simply displaying a list of links to other websites. Voice-recognition technology also allows you to speak your request into a phone instead of typing it.

The transition is going well so far. Google’s revenue rose 20 percent last year to $89 billion, propelled by digital ads served up on its search engine, YouTube and Gmail. Although shortcuts won’t initially show ads after you tap them, Google typically sells marketing space if a feature or service becomes popular.
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The enemy drone whined in the distance. The Interceptor, a drone-hunting machine from Silicon Valley startup Airspace Systems, slinked off its launch pad and dashed away in hot pursuit.

The hunter twisted through the air to avoid trees, homed in on its target, fired a Kevlar net to capture it, and then carried the rogue drone back to its base like a bald eagle with a kill.

Airspace is among some 70 companies working on counter-drone systems as small consumer and commercial drones proliferate. But unlike others, it aims to catch drones instead of disabling them or shooting them down.

A demonstration at Airspace headquarters in San Leandro, California, showed a compact aircraft just a few feet wide, yet capable of sophisticated, autonomous navigation and accurate targeting of a drone in motion.

It is still early days in the drone-defense business.

Security professionals both public and private worry about dangerous drones at military sites, airports, data centers, and public venues like baseball stadiums. But counter-measures carry risk, too.

For example, the U.S. Air Force recently tested experimental shotgun shells for shooting down drones. But if the drone carries a payload like a bomb or chemical weapon, it could still fall on its target.

Jamming the radio signals to the drone does not always work, either. Drones differ from “remote-controlled” aircraft because they can fly to pre-set coordinates autonomously. The fastest drones can reach 150 miles per hour (240 km), too quick for human pilots flying another drone to catch.

The technical challenge of safely stopping a dangerous drone appealed to Guy Bar-Nahum, one of the inventors of the Apple iPod and the engineering brains behind Airspace Systems.

“We are creating a very primitive brain of an insect, a dragonfly,” Bar-Nahum said. “It wakes up, sees the world and doesn’t really know where it is. But it has goals to capture the other drone, and it’s planning a path in the world and knows how to move through the world.”

The Interceptor must pack computing power and sophisticated software into that tiny drone brain. Unlike the emerging driverless car, it has to understand its environment without the benefit of an internet connection to a massive mapping database.

“My background is in physics, and it’s all about modeling the world” with math, Bar-Nahum said. “What we do in this lowly startup that looks to be a normal, military ‘take ’em down’ kind of company is build machines that can model the world.”

The business model is challenging too. Currently, only law enforcement officials have the authority to interfere with another drone’s flight. Regulations also require a certified pilot to stand ready to intervene in any commercial drone flight and keep a line-of-sight view of the aircraft.

Thus, Airspace Systems will not be selling its aircraft, but rather leasing a system — complete with operators and a mobile command center — to customers.

The New York Mets have an interest in using the system to protect Citi Field in New York City, according to Sterling VC, the venture capital arm of Sterling Equities, which owns the stadium and also invested in Airspace.

Detection and destruction

The danger from hostile drones became more clear in the last few months when the U.S. military said Islamic State fighters were using them to attack Iraqi troops in the battle over Mosul.

The military news site Defense One reported IS was using an array of consumer-style drones, including an agile quadcopter version for dropping explosives.

At least 70 companies worldwide are working on various types of counter-drone systems, said Mike Blades, aerospace and defense analyst with Frost & Sullivan.

San Francisco-based Dedrone, for example, has raised $28 million in venture capital and is focused on detecting drone incursions. It now has about 200 customers, according to CEO and co-founder Joerg Lamprecht. Some are car companies looking to protect new designs from the automotive press and others are data center owners looking to keep drones from damaging critical rooftop cooling systems.

“Most of the market is going to be detection, something like a burglar alarm,” Lamprecht said.

DroneShield, an Australian company, also makes a detection system and has developed a prototype electronic jamming gun to ground a drone.

Airspace, backed by $5 million from Shasta Ventures and Sterling VC, hopes to bring its drone-capture system to market as early as this summer.

But Airspace’s approach has limitations. Chief among them: The Interceptor catches one drone at a time. To defend against multiple drones, Airspace must launch multiple machines.

“The swarm of drones is going to be the threat,” said Blades.

Beyond that, catching drones incurs expense and complication when simpler measures might do. Dedrone’s Lamprecht gives an example from a German customer that makes cars.

At its test track, the customer wanted to protect new car designs from drones’ prying eyes. When Dedrone detects an intrusion, the car’s driver hits a dashboard button to fire a fog bomb to obscure the car.

But James Bond-style diversions, or even forcing a drone down, may prove insufficient if a craft is hovering above a crowd with something dangerous, like an explosive or poison. In such a situation, capturing and carrying away the enemy drone may be the best option, even if it is complex and expensive.

For Airspace, perfecting a drone-hunting machine than can see — and chase — on its own is not as crazy as it may seem.

“This is an old ambition. You can read about it in Jules Verne or Aldous Huxley,” said Bar-Nahum. “That’s why autonomous movement is the next decade for me.”
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Apple is cutting prices on two iPad models and introducing red iPhones, but the company held back on updating its higher-end iPad Pro tablets.

A much-speculated 10.5-inch iPad Pro didn’t materialize, nor did new versions of existing sizes in the Pro lineup, which is aimed at businesses and creative professionals. The new devices are mostly refreshes of existing models. Apple unveiled them through press releases Tuesday rather than a staged event, as it typically does for bigger product releases.

 

The iPad updates come as the tablet market continues to decline, after a few years of rapid growth. According to IDC, tablet shipments fell 20 percent to 53 million worldwide in the final three months of 2016, compared with the same period in 2015.

The new lineup

The iPad Air 2 is replaced by a new model simply called the iPad. It retains a 9.7-inch screen, but gains a little weight and thickness. The display is brighter and the processor faster. Its price starts at $329 for 32 gigabytes of storage, down from $399. The standard-size iPad is now cheaper than the smaller Mini model.

 

The 7.9-inch iPad Mini 4 now comes with 128 gigabytes of storage starting at $399, rather than $499 before. Apple is eliminating the 32-gigabyte model, which used to sell for $399. Nothing else is changing.

Apple is also releasing a red edition of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus; for each phone sold, Apple is donating an unspecified amount to HIV and AIDS programs. And Apple is doubling the storage on the smaller iPhone SE while keeping the $399 starting price.

 

The new iPad Mini 4 is available right away, while the standard-size iPad comes out next week, with orders to begin Friday. The new iPhone SE comes out Friday, while the red iPhones are expected by the end of the month, with advance orders beginning Friday.

The missing device

IDC analyst Jorge Vela had high hopes for a 10.5-inch iPad. He said such a size might have offered room for a better keyboard, compared with the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, and it wouldn’t have been as bulky as the 12.9-inch version.

And Apple typically sparks consumer interest when it has new sizes and designs, Vela said, as seen by a jump in sales following the introduction of larger iPhones in 2014 (iPhone sales have since dropped.) Vela said a 10.5-inch version might have been enough for existing iPad owners to upgrade.

A 10.5-inch version may still come this year, closer to the holiday shopping season, along with updates to existing Pro sizes.

Jackdaw Research analyst Jan Dawson said Tuesday’s announcement makes it “even clearer that there are two very distinct iPad tiers now — the iPad Pro and the basic iPads. The iPad Pros will likely continue to get all the best new features, while the basic iPad will get occasional updates and new features a little later than the Pros, lagging a generation or two behind.”

The processor in the new standard-size iPad, for instance, is akin to what’s in the iPhone 6S from 2015. The Mini’s processor is even older.

Down, but not out

In the last three months of 2016, iPhones generated 10 times the revenue as iPads. Unit sales of iPads fell 19 percent from the previous year. Yet Apple CEO Tim Cook has expressed optimism because many people were buying iPads for the first time, indicating that the market had yet to reach saturation, the point at which everyone who wants a particular product already has one.

 

Dawson agrees that the number of tablet owners is still growing, even if overall sales are declining because people aren’t upgrading often. He said the new $329 price for the 9.7-inch iPad should help spur sales. New 9.7-inch models have previously cost at least $499.

Far from holding a clearance sale, Vela said Apple is merely taking advantage of lower prices for older components. And Apple might be able to preserve higher profit margins by pushing people into a model with four times the storage, or 128 gigabytes; the extra storage costs Apple far less than the extra $100 that model sells for, Vela said.

Challengers

Apple remains the market leader, accounting for about a quarter of all tablets shipped in the fourth quarter, according to IDC.

Samsung beat Apple to a tablet announcement by nearly a month, though Samsung’s Android-based Galaxy Tab S3 doesn’t actually start selling until this Friday, for $600.

Vela doesn’t consider it a serious threat to Apple. Even though the Tab S3 is more in line with iPad Pros in quality, Vela said people tend to buy Samsung tablets as media-consumption devices, something they can do with the cheaper iPads.

Samsung also has two Windows 10 tablets coming. Called the Galaxy Book, the Windows devices are more likely to challenge Microsoft’s Surface than iPads. Microsoft is due for a refresh of its Surface Pro tablet, last updated in October 2015.
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