GM faces lawsuit over self-driving car collision

Self-driving car manufacturers dread lawsuits over crashes due to questions of liability, and GM is about to learn just how problematic they can be. Oscar Nilsson has sued GM after a December collision between his motorcycle and one of the company’s self-driving Chevy Bolts. According to his version of events, he was trailing the Bolt when it started changing lanes. He tried to pass the autonomous car, but it “suddenly” swerved back into his lane, knocking him to the ground and injuring both his neck and shoulder.

GM, not surprisingly, disagreed with the interpretation in a statement. It pointed to the San Francisco Police Department’s collision report, which didn’t lay blame but said that Nilsson merged into the Bolt’s lane “before it was safe to do so.”

There have certainly been disputes over the involvement of self-driving technology in crashes — just ask Tesla. Those incidents involved semi-autonomous cars where the human driver was always expected to share some responsibility, though, rather than fully autonomous vehicles where a human only serves as backup. And that makes cases like this problematic. If GM bears any responsibility at all, was it the fault of the developers (for not developing smart-enough collision avoidance), or the backup driver for not spotting the abrupt move? The lawsuit won’t completely settle the question, but it may lay the groundwork for future suits.

Source: ABC News

New York AG will investigate firm selling fake followers to stars

Twitter bots are bad enough by themselves, but it’s worse when they’re built using real info — and New York wants to clamp down. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened an investigation into Devumi, a company that sold over 3.5 million fake social network followers (primarily on Twitter) to celebrities and politicians. While bots by themselves aren’t automatically illegal, the company also offered “at least” 55,000 accounts using the personal details of real people, some of whom live in New York. That’s “impersonation and deception,” Schneiderman said, and it’s made all the worse when some of those people aren’t legal adults.

The customers are eclectic, the New York Times has learned. They include stars like John Leguizamo and Kathy Ireland, tech luminaries like Michael Dell, and people both critical of and supportive of President Trump. It’s doubtful that all of these people are aware of the fraudulent nature of some of the accounts, or even that the accounts have been purchased. They’re sometimes snapped up by helpers who feel compelled to pad their clients’ follower counts.

Devumi was founded by German Calas, and operates well away from New York — West Palm Beach, in fact. He denied offering fake followers when asked by the NYT, but stopped responding when given evidence of fraudulent accounts.

Twitter has shut down sample accounts for violating its anti-spam policies. However, the discovery of the scale of Devumi’s operations has raised a question: why doesn’t Twitter do more to screen for spam accounts in the first place, such as captchas? This would permit above-board bots (such as those that automatically tweet historical events), but would thwart bulk accounts that clearly have no real human involvement. While it would dent Twitter’s all-important user numbers, it would also increase the quality of the users that are left and cut down on the spam that drives some users away.

Impersonation and deception are illegal under New York law. We’re opening an investigation into Devumi and its apparent sale of bots using stolen identities. https://t.co/uvxGOp7soQ

— Eric Schneiderman (@AGSchneiderman) January 27, 2018

Source: New York Times (1), (2), Eric Schneiderman (Twitter)

Coincheck loses $400 million in massive cryptocurrency heist

Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck just made history, and not in a good way. It has lost around $534 million worth of NEM tokens, one of the lesser-known cryptocurrencies, after its network was hacked on January 25th, 12:57pm EST. The attackers remained undetected for eight hours, giving them enough time to steal 523 million tokens kept in a “hot wallet,” a type of storage that’s connected to the internet for easy spending. While the exact value of the stolen coins are unclear due to the ever-changing nature of cryptocurrency — it’s $400 million at the very least — Coincheck might have already lost more than what Mt. Gox did a few years ago.

Mt. Gox, which was also based in Shibuya like Coincheck, was the victim of another massive cryptocurrency theft back in 2014. It lost between $400 and $480 million from the heist, prompting Japan’s legislators to pass a law to regulate bitcoin exchanges. Despite the comparable figures, Coincheck’s hack didn’t quite affect the market the way Mt. Gox did. Mt. Gox, after all, handled around 80 percent of Bitcoins back in the day when there weren’t a lot of exchanges yet. Also, affected Mt. Gox users didn’t get their money back.

Coincheck suspended its trading and withdrawal for all cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin, but the company promised not to run from its customers. It said it will use its own money to reimburse all 260,000 affected users, though it didn’t specify when it will start disbursing funds.

Source: CoinDesk, BBC, Bloomberg

Elon Musk’s Boring Company is selling a flamethrower

No, we’re not kidding. After weeks of teases, Elon Musk has confirmed that The Boring Company is selling… a flamethrower. That’s right, the same company digging traffic-skipping tunnels is now offering a weapon. Plunk down $500 for a pre-order (there’s no word on when it will ship) and you can have the “world’s safest” fire-breathing weapon. Just in case it isn’t safe enough, though, there’s also a $30 branded fire extinguisher.

There are 20,000 on sale. And before you ask: yes, these should be legal. Musk said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms allows throwers with flames shorter than 10 feet, which looks to be the case here.

Why a flamethrower? Musk hasn’t said, but he did indicate that he would sell a flamethrower when Boring Company hats sold out, and he’s clearly living up to that promise. It’s certainly consistent with the firm’s “if it sounds good, do it” ethos — remember, Elon Musk founded The Boring Company on impulse after he was caught in traffic. It’s undoubtedly going to garner attention as a marketing ploy. The question is, what happens if and when the flamethrower sells out? We have a hunch that Musk would be happy to top this with another novelty, especially since the company’s first tunnels won’t see service for a while.

Great for roasting nuts 🔥 🥜

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on Jan 27, 2018 at 4:53pm PST

Via: Elon Musk (Twitter)

Source: The Boring Company

Streaming services must give songwriters a 44 percent pay hike

Songwriters just claimed a major victory in the fight for better pay from streaming giants like Apple and Spotify. The US Copyright Royalty Board has ruled for an increase in songwriter rates that will give them a 43.8 percent pay raise over the next 5 years. They also won’t have to jump through hoops to figure out how much they’re owed: they’ll claim either a percentage of revenue or the total content costs, whichever pays the most. There are no longer caps on writer rates, for that matter.

This isn’t exactly what writers wanted. They were hoping to be paid per stream, which would give them a direct stake in the success of a popular tune. However, the National Music Publishers Association’s David Israelite called it the “best songwriters have ever had” under the current compulsory license system.

There’s no guarantee this will make writers happy. Musicians frequently complain about low royalties from streaming services, and songwriters frequently get the short end of the stick even in those conditions. It also raises questions about how the streaming companies themselves will account for this pay raise. They may not have to increase your subscription rate to make up for the difference, but that could mean having to accept thinner profits to get your business. Mind you, this could help everyone involved if it convinces more artists to stream their music.

Via: Variety

Source: NMPA

An amateur astronomer just discovered a long-lost NASA zombie satellite

Scott Tilley is an amateur visual and radio astronomer whose hobby is tracking satellites — specifically, classified spy satellites. As detailed at his blog Riddles in the Sky, he recently stumbled across something unusual: a NASA satellite that has been lost in space since 2005, happily chattering away to anyone who would listen.

Luckily, Tilley was.

Tilley was on a hunt for Zuma, the secret Air Force spy satellite that was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on January 7, but failed to achieve orbit. No one knew what Zuma was or what its mission was, but initial reports suggest that the Falcon 9 had no part in the mission failure, and it may have been due to the uncoupling procedure designed by Northrop Grumman, which built the satellite.

In any case, Zuma supposedly met with a fiery death on reentry. Or did it?

While searching for any evidence of the classified satellite in orbit, Tilley ran across some unusual transmissions. Subsequent observations indicated that they were likely coming from a 17-year-old NASA satellite called IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration), which was launched on a Delta-II rocket in 2000 to map the Earth’s magnetosphere. IMAGE used a variety of sensors, including neutral atom, ultraviolet, and radio imaging to observe plasma in the upper magnetosphere.

After years of successful operation, IMAGE ceased responding in 2005, possibly due to a power failure in the transponder controller. However, there remained the possibility that IMAGE could reboot itself when it passed through the Earth’s shadow.

“Periodically the spacecraft will enter an eclipse and NASA surmised that this may trigger it to restart and apply power back to the communications system. That appears to have happened!” Tilley wrote. “As you will note from the plots below the Sun angles are presently good for IMAGE and it may just stay operational for some time to come.”

Word of the discovery quickly reached scientists who had worked on the mission, according to Science. “The odds are extremely good that it’s alive,” said Patricia Reiff, a space plasma physicist. “The team is collectively holding their breath waiting for some real information exchange between IMAGE and the ground.”

America Space reached out to the space agency for comment, and they were cautiously optimistic. “We’re still not sure it really is IMAGE, but we are working to identify people knowledgeable about the mission after all this time and working on getting all the appropriate scripts and software in-place just in case it is IMAGE,” said Jeff Hayes of NASA.

If the spacecraft is indeed operational, it could resume its mission by monitoring Earth’s northern auroral zone. “At the very least it made for an interesting Saturday afternoon in the radio room,” said Tilley.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Did SpaceX lose the classified Zuma payload during its latest launch?
• The Orbital Reflector, launching in 2018, is the world’s first space sculpture
• Elon Musk posts pics of huge Falcon Heavy rocket ahead of debut launch
• Here’s everything you need to know about SpaceX Starlink
• After a monthlong stay at the space station, Dragon capsule returns to Earth

The Rocket Lab founder just launched a giant disco ball into orbit

The spaceflight startup Rocket Lab recently launched the second test flight of its Electron rocket, and it marked the first rocket launched from New Zealand. Named “Still Testing,” the 55-foot-tall rocket successfully deployed three commercial satellites.

The launch from the Māhia Peninsula made New Zealand the 11th country to deliver a payload into orbit. The rocket had an extra passenger that it deployed in addition to the satellites, however, as sharp-eyed observers noticed and the company recently revealed.

Created by the company CEO Peter Beck, the sculpture called “Humanity Star” is a polygonal carbon-fiber sphere consisting of 65 panels that reflect sunlight as it spins. About the size of a large beach ball, it’s visible from Earth with the naked eye, and the company announced it will be “the brightest thing in the night sky.”

Don’t call it a disco ball, Beck told the Washington Post. He wants it to have a more serious impact. “But in all honesty, yes, it’s a giant mirror ball,” he admitted.

The space sculpture will orbit the Earth every 90 minutes travelling at 27 times the speed of sound, spinning as it orbits. Its orbit will last for about nine months, at which point it will burn up as it reenters the atmosphere.

Rocket Lab has set up a website for tracking Humanity Star, so you can see it when it passes overhead. “The goal is make people look up and realize they are on a rock in a giant universe,” Beck said in a statement.

“My hope is that everyone looking up at the Humanity Star will look past it to the expanse of the universe, feel a connection to our place in it and think a little differently about their lives, actions and what is important,” he added. “You may just feel a connection to the more than seven billion other people on this planet we share this ride with.”

Not everyone views the space sculpture as such a lofty accomplishment, as Mashable points out. “This is stupid, vandalizes the night sky and corrupts our view of the cosmos,” tweeted astronomer David Kipping. “Looking up at the Moon and the planets in the night sky invokes similar feelings of wonder – why do we need this artificial disco ball in orbit?” echoed planetary scientist Meg Schwamb.

According to Rocket Lab, regulators of space missions in both the U.S. and New Zealand were informed of the payload and approved it prior to launch.

The company also responded to the critics with an emailed statement. “The Humanity Star will briefly flash across the sky for a few seconds, reflecting sunlight back to the Earth’s surface, creating a fleeting glint of light,” said Beck. “It is designed to be a brief moment of just a few seconds.”

Editors’ Recommendations

• SpaceX launches both a reused rocket and capsule in successful ISS cargo mission
• NASA’s new X-ray navigation could guide robots through deep space
• Meet the amateur astronauts trying to crowdfund their way into orbit
• Budweiser begins space experiments aimed at brewing beer on Mars
• New spacesuit design boasts ‘auto home’ button for astronauts adrift in the void

Johnny Cash turned up to eleven [#acpodcast]

Daniel Bader, Andrew Martonik, Russell Holly, and Jerry Hildenbrand convene to talk about LG, the death of Google Now as Google Assistant takes its place, and the race for mindshare in the voice assistant and smart speaker market.

They also tackle the latest rumors and leaks of the Galaxy S9, which is set to launch February 25th. Join us!

Show Notes and Links:

• The U.S. smartphone industry has an LG problem

• LG says G7 is ‘on schedule’, will be announced ‘when the time is right’

• Google Now is now useless, and we have Google Assistant to thank for it

• Apple HomePod is finally coming, and does almost nothing

• Samsung Galaxy S9 launch event set for Feb 25: ‘The camera. Reimagined.’

• The Galaxy A8+ gives us an early look at Galaxy S9 design cues

• Samsung Galaxy S9 appears in clearest render yet

• Samsung Galaxy S9 supposedly shows up in hands-on video

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• Thrifter.com: All the best deals from Amazon, Best Buy, and more, fussily curated and constantly updated.

• GameStash: Hundreds of awesome games on your Android phone. Try it free for 14 days!

Podcast MP3 URL: http://traffic.libsyn.com/androidcentral/androidcentral369.mp3

Saudi Arabia releases major tech investor after corruption probe

Saudi Arabia has released almost a hundred people detained on corruption allegations, and one of them is Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The billionaire prince known as the “Arabian Warren Buffet” is one of the tech’s biggest investors and known for having stakes in various tech corporations. His current and former investments include Apple, Amazon, AOL, eBay, HP, Twitter and Lyft. bin Talal was arrested in November when the government launched a massive crackdown on corruption and confined at the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh. The other detainees were released after reaching financial settlements — authorities expect to raise $100 billion from them — but it’s unclear if bin Talal also offered to pay.

With a net worth of around $17 billion, the prince can definitely afford to. But he told Reuters in an interview hours before he was released that he’s “continuing to maintain his innocence of any corruption in talks with authorities.” He said his confinement was a misunderstanding and he supports Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s economic reform efforts contrary to earlier reports that he was critical of them. Despite being accused of money laundering, bribery and extorting officials, he said there’ll be no charges: “There are just some discussions between me and the government. I believe we are on the verge of finishing everything within days.”

While the terms of the prince’s release weren’t revealed, he said he expects to keep full control of his investment firm Kingdom Holding Company. He also assured the investors and investees of his business empire that he won’t be required to surrender his assets to the government. If that’s truly the case, we can likely expect his firm to invest in more tech companies in the future.

Source: Reuters, The New York Times

HQ Trivia Eliminates $20 Minimum to Cash Out Winnings

HQ Trivia on Friday announced that it has dropped its $20 minimum balance requirement for players to cash out their winnings via PayPal.

The change is welcomed since HQ’s standard prize amount, now up to $2,500, is often split by tens if not hundreds of players, in which cases each winner ends up with a small prize like $10 or $12 that was previously not cashable. Now, anyone can cash out a prize, even if only enough to buy a coffee or two.

💰 It’s payday, baby! We’ve removed the minimum balance required to cash out your HQ winnings. Put that money in the bank today!

— HQ Trivia (@hqtrivia) January 26, 2018

For those unaware, HQ is a live trivia show that launched on iPhone in September, and on Android around New Year’s Day. During the show, players attempt to answer a series of 12 questions correctly to win a cash prize. To reduce cheating, players have less than 10 seconds to choose one of three answers.

The show is hosted every day at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and at 3:00 p.m. every weekday, most often by comedian Scott Rogowsky. Pro tip: you can swipe right on the chat to hide the obnoxious flow of comments.

HQ Trivia continues to surge in popularity, with many games now attracting more than one million players, compared to just hundreds back in September. Over 1.6 million players competed for a special $15,000 prize last Sunday, and some 15 minutes later, seven winners walked away with over $2,000 apiece.

If you haven’t played HQ yet, you can download the game from the App Store and sign up for free. For each new player that you refer to the game, you can receive an extra life, which lets you skip one question if you answer it incorrectly. My own referral code is iPod if you wish to help me get past question five.

Tag: HQ
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