Google Shopping’s ‘gun’ ban blocked people from buying wine

Google Shopping banned weapon listings way back in 2012, but users have just been noticing it — and have learned that the filtering has been a little too aggressive. Visitors from the US and elsewhere have discovered that the shopping search page hasn’t been showing results for anything with “gun” in the name, including some perfectly innocuous items. Did you want to find Burgundy wine or Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction? Too bad. You could still find things through a regular Google search, but that wouldn’t be as helpful.

A Google spokesperson told the Telegraph it was investigating the problem, but noted that there was a good reason to filter “gun” results. It has a “strict” international policy banning the promotion of guns and their parts, and it clearly didn’t want to take any chances. Searches in the US and Canada turned up results as of this writing, so there’s a chance it has already been fixed.

The attention to the issue came following the Parkland, Florida mass shooting, which raised questions about ease of access to firearms.

While a problem like this is easy to resolve, it highlights the tightrope Google has to walk when it comes to content filtering. As much as it may want to enable as many searches as possible, it has to balance that desire with concerns that it might enable criminal acts if it’s too lenient. Clearly, it was erring on the side of caution this time around.

Source: Telegraph, H8KU (Twitter)

MIT’s robotic carpenters take the hassle out of custom furniture

If you want to build custom furniture, you usually need to know your way around a saw and devote days to both designing it and cutting every last piece. MIT’s CSAIL might have a better solution: let computers and robots do the hard work. Its researchers have developed an AutoSaw system that makes it easy to craft furniture without the risk of cutting your fingers. You start on your computer by customizing furniture templates in OnShape’s simple CAD system. After that, modified robots (a Roomba for a jigsaw, Kuka youBots for chopping) cut the individual parts. You still have to assemble it yourself, but the software will guide you through the process.

AutoSaw is currently limited to common household items like chairs, desks and tables. However, the hope is that it’ll eventually be useful for porches and other larger-scale projects. CSAIL also wants to incorporate tasks beyond cutting, such as drilling and gluing.

The aim is to democratize custom furniture building. Yes, you could use CNC machines, but they’re typically gargantuan, fixed devices that limit the size and shape of what you can cut. And that’s assuming you have access to them in the first place. This approach provides much more flexibility, and might even let you cut parts at home if the cost of the robots can be kept in check. If a pre-built table wouldn’t quite fit in your kitchen, you could design one yourself after a quick trip to the lumber store.

Source: MIT CSAIL (YouTube)

Setting up Voice Match on your Google Home? Here’s a step-by-step guide

Just because you share your Google Home with your family members doesn’t mean Google has to feel like a shared assistant. Thanks to a feature called Voice Match, the Google Assistant on your Google Home devices can respond with personalized information based on the voice giving the command or asking the question. For example, Google Assistant can give you and your partner different estimated commute times based on the addresses you have listed as your workplace.

Do you like CNN but your partner is all about NPR? You can also customize your daily news briefings, so you can get news reports that are catered specifically to you, while your roommate gets specific reports for her. To enjoy Voice Match, you’ll have to go through a short series of steps. Every person who uses Voice Match — up to six individuals total — must link a Google Account and voice to your Google Home device. Here’s what you’ll need to do to get Voice Match set up on your Google Home.

1. Open the Google Home App

To get started, open up the Google Home app on your phone or tablet. Be sure you’ve updated the app to the latest available version for the set-up to work properly. Then, double check that your phone or tablet is on the same Wi-Fi network as the Google Home, as this will ensure the devices will be able to communicate effectively.

2. Select Account

To make sure the listed Google Account is the one you want associated with your voice, tap on the “Menu” icon. If the listed account is different than the one you want, you can easily switch accounts by tapping on the triangle next to the Account name. From there, just choose the account you want to link to your voice.

3. Select Device

On the home screen of the Google Home app, you’ll see “Devices” in the upper right-hand corner. Give that a tap, and scroll until you’ve found the device on which you’d like to set up Voice Match. Next, tap on a blue banner that says “Multi user is now available, link your account” or “Get personal results with Voice Match.”

Dan Baker/Digital Trends

4. Train Your Voice

If this is your first time setting up Voice Match, you’ll need to say a few words so that the Google Home can learn to recognize the sound of your voice. The app will give you some some word prompts that you should follow. Basically, you’ll say “Ok Google” twice and “Hey Google” twice.

If you’ve already set up Voice Match, simply tap “Continue” to move on to the next step. You also have the option of retraining the Google Home (after all, sometimes our voices change, particularly during adolescence). To set up your voice again, tap on “Retrain voice model” and follow the prompts that the app gives you. This will override the previous training and give the Google Home device a new voice model to work with.

5. Invite Others to Set Up Voice Match

Do your other family members and friends want to get in on the action? To invite other individuals to set up their own voices on Voice Match, tap “Invite” and select a method of communication. You also have the option of skipping this step.

Keep in mind that your Google Home will use the sound of your voice to access personal data, so a similar-sounding voice might be able to access it as well.

Juliana Chokkattu/Digital Trends

6. Link Default Music and Video Services

To personalize your listening experience when you ask the Google Home to play music, you can link your preferred music and video services to your Google Account. To do this, tap “Music” and select your default service. If your preferred platform is Google Play Music or Youtube Red, your accounts will automatically link when you set up the Google Home, so you don’t need to do anything more. If you prefer using Spotify or Pandora, simply tap “Link” and sign into the service. Now, when you ask the Google Home to play music, the assistant will know which service to use.

7. Start Asking Questions

Once your Voice Match is all set up, you can start requesting personalized information. Ask the Google Assistant what you have on your calendar that day, request a read-through of your shopping lists, or even find out and book available flights. It’s just like having a real personal assistant, but without the ability to pick up your dry cleaning.

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House passes contentious anti-online sex trafficking bill

Sex-trafficking victims, prosecutors and state attorneys will be able to sue websites that host ads and content linked to the sex trade under the bill the House has just approved. The bill called “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017” or FOSTA seeks to amend Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which protects websites from lawsuits over user-generated posts. It was filed by Rep. Ann Wagner (pictured above) to target websites like Backpage, which hosts sex and child trafficking ads. Previous investigations have revealed that Backpage went as far as editing posters’ ads — it replaced words in ads trafficking minors with terms like “fresh,” for instance — to conceal evidence from law enforcement.

However, since the bill’s terms would apply to all websites and not just to shady directories, the tech industry is divided on the issue. The Internet Association, IBM, Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are for it. Facebook, as well, with COO Sheryl Sandberg voicing support for the bill on her page yesterday. “Facebook is committed to working with… legislators in the House and Senate as the process moves forward to make sure we pass meaningful and strong legislation to stop sex trafficking,” she wrote.

Google and groups like the EFF make up the opposition, warning the government that the bill would drastically change the Communications Decency Act, which allowed the internet to flourish. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said it will lead to platforms policing user speech. After all, if they don’t screen their users’ posts, then they could get sued left and right. That means smaller websites and non-profit orgs that don’t have the means to moderate every post are the most at risk. “The tragedy,” according to the EFF, “is that FOSTA isn’t needed to prosecute or sue sex traffickers.” Backpage is reportedly under federal investigation even though it has cited CDA in the past.

Within the government, though, the bill seems to be enjoying support from both political parties and from various authorities. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. told The Washington Post: “The ability to hold websites criminally liable for facilitating sex trafficking or the exploitation of children would be transformative in the fight against human trafficking. I thank Congresswoman Wagner for her steadfast dedication to protecting trafficking victims.”

The bill is now on its way to the Senate, which has already passed a similar bill called Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act or SESTA last year.

FOSTA would hurt marginalized communities who need the safety of online spaces most of all. pic.twitter.com/s2qJeC8pGN

— EFF (@EFF) February 27, 2018

FOSTA would also hurt nonprofit knowledge sharing platforms like the Internet Archive and Wikipedia. https://t.co/eJdSBaAUwL

— EFF (@EFF) February 27, 2018

Source: The Washington Post

Welsh police force is first in U.K to use virtual reality to train its officers

Mario Gutiérrez/Getty Images

Police in the United Kingdom have started taking advantage of virtual reality technology to train officers. Gwent Police, located in Wales, recently launched the new VR training system, becoming the first police force in the U.K. to do so.

The technology makes it possible to train officers to deal with situations that they may encounter on the streets, and to test how they react to various scenarios, which is difficult to ascertain under routine training conditions, but can potentially be replicated (or replicated as closely as possible) by using immersive VR.

The scenario used for training involves a 280-degree VR scene in which the officer moves an avatar around, interacts with other characters, uses handcuffs, carries out arrests, and enters properties in a branching narrative.

“[Virtual reality] provides the ability of a safe learning environment, which promotes open conversations about opportunities for options for action, investigation and safeguarding,” Superintendent Vicki Townsend told Digital Trends. “Often within policing, there is no right or wrong answer to how a situation is managed. It’s about understanding what you would do, the power and legislation you utilize to take that action, and why you have done it. The scenarios provide the opportunity as a group to maximize this learning by focusing on the decision-making model, and allows the development of officers from peers with more or different experiences.”

The use of virtual reality as a training technique is something that has already been explored by military medics, astronauts, surgeons, and a range of other professions where it’s important to get “hands-on” experience. VR enables them to test skills in a safe environment, where the chance of physical risk (to themselves or others) is lessened.

As VR technology matures further, more and more sectors and professions will likely adapt these tools to their own purposes and requirements.

“We are currently delivering the training as part of the force training days to frontline officers,” Townsend said. “Forty officers get an input [each] week. This started in January and is due to finish in May. This is is the first scenario that we built. We have planned to build 10 scenarios … We are also hoping to build multi-agency-based scenarios.”

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Pollen-dispensing, bee-attracting robo-flower is the coolest art project ever

We have previously written about one project that employed robot bees to pollinate flowers. Now, an Australian artist has come up with the inverse concept: Using a robotic flower to attract real bees. It sounds crazy, but it’s a fascinating example of biomimicry and the way that technology can integrate with the natural world.

The robot flowers were inspired by nature’s biotic pollination systems. Robotic replicas of real flowers, they are designed to attract bees and attach pollen, integrating into the reproductive cycle of local flora. The flowers are activated using an array of servos and actuators. These distribute pollen and synthetic nectar, which is then extruded toward a reservoir at the center of each flower. After this, articulated mechanical stamen retract to dowse the flower’s anthers in pollen, before returning to their static position.

Sugar water is also used as a nectar proxy to encourage bees to visit. The whole thing is filmed with a web-enabled camera. Who needs a regular garden?

“Bees are a vital part of our ecosystem,” Michael Candy, the creator of the project, told Digital Trends. “I feel that everyone needs to take the time and get to know these hard workers that keep our plants and crops pollinated. The Synthetic Pollenizer is an artwork proposing a future where technology and nature may flourish together.”

The problem wasn’t without its challenges, though. “It’s taken a long time to successfully coax bees into landing on the pollenizer,” Candy said. “Many different additions were prototyped and failed before this more recent success. There are millions of flowers out there to choose from, so visiting bees are a rarity at best.”

Ultimately, it’s more of a conceptual robotics project than a real-world solution to problems. But that’s not to say it couldn’t have real-world applications.

“During my collaboration with the resource ecologists group at Wageningen University, the project was looking at ways scientists could benefit by using it in the field,” Candy said. “The initial concept was to create a tool to track bees through a network of flowers. With this idea, we hoped to build a synthetic flower that could attach dye to the backs of bees and photograph them. That way we would know which bees visited what areas and when it happened: a useful and non-invasive technique to gather quantitative data.”

With fears about declining bee populations — and their impact on the natural ecosystem as a whole — the project couldn’t come along at a better time. “As an artwork, it’s bound to ask more questions than it answers,” Candy said. “But in this context, it proves that technology and nature can live in harmony.”

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A ’bionic’ larynx sounds far more natural than regular artificial voice boxes

Scientists at the MARCS Institute at Western Sydney University in Australia have demonstrated a groundbreaking noninvasive artificial larynx that could be used to give a voice back to patients around the world, whose voice boxes have been removed as the result of cancer.

What makes the Pneumatic Artificial Larynx (PAL) demo different to other artificial larynxes is the fact that it doesn’t require invasive surgical implantation and utilizes a patient’s own respiratory system in order to work.

The existing type of treatment involving artificial larynxes means surgically implanting a prosthetic device into the stoma, an artificial opening in the neck made by a surgeon. Not only is this approach invasive, but it also opens patients up to the risk of infections and can result in a voice that sounds strained and whispery.

“Despite emergent progress in many fields of bionics, a functional Bionic Voice prosthesis for laryngectomy patients (larynx amputees) has not yet been achieved, leading to a lifetime of vocal disability for these patients,” the researchers write.

The so-called “Bionic Voice” offers an alternate approach. It is an electronic device that uses the patient’s own breath to create a humming sound. This is then converted into speech through the movement of the user’s lips and tongue. The result is an artificial voice box that can carry out the function of the larynx but without the degraded speech or associated health risks of other approaches. It’s an amazing advance that hints at enormous promise for the patients who may one day rely on this on a daily basis.

Next up, the researchers at Western Sydney University plan to develop the project in order to create a pneumatic bionic voice prosthesis that would take the form of a small “control unit” fixed over the patient’s neck, along with a “voice source” unit on the roof of a wearer’s mouth. This will reportedly improve speech levels further — resulting in more regular human-sounding speech far beyond the dreams of many people who previously used artificial larynxes.

A paper describing the work, titled “A pneumatic Bionic Voice prosthesis — Pre-clinical trials of controlling the voice onset and offset,” was recently published in the journal Plos One.

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How British cops used a drone to save a car crash victim’s life

As drone technology continues to improve, an increasing number of law enforcement agencies are finding uses for the diminutive flying machines in their everyday work.

And it’s saving people’s lives.

Take this recent case in the U.K. Following overnight reports of a man wandering away from a flipped car on an isolated road south of Grimsby some 130 miles north of London, the local police department deployed its drone to search for the driver.

The moment our #thermal #drone found a hypothermic man in a 6’ deep ditch 160m from his crashed car in the pitch dark tonight. Casualty conveyed to hospital. Thanks to @WoldsSgt for the request that may well have saved his life. pic.twitter.com/LwrPnBVj6H

— Lincs Police Drones (@lincsCOPter) February 25, 2018

It was a freezing cold evening, and the cops knew that if they couldn’t find the man quickly, he could die from hypothermia.

While some officers searched the immediate area on foot, the drone flew around the crash site to see if its thermal imaging camera could pinpoint the vehicle’s owner.

After a short while, the drone pilot located the man about 160 meters from the car and directed officers to his precise position. He was found “unconscious and hypothermic” in a six-foot-deep ditch, and would likely have died but for the search team’s quick work, aided by the drone and its thermal imaging camera.

Without drone technology, the cops could have received help from the U.K.’s National Police Air Service, but the quadcopter was likely able to reach the scene far more quickly, and at a fraction of the cost of a helicopter.

Police in the U.K. are making growing use of drones for their work. Another police department in the south of the country in 2017 became the first to launch a 24-hour drone unit. The equipment currently includes DJI Inspire drones with powerful thermal imaging and zoom cameras attached. DJI’s smaller Mavic drone is also part of its equipment.  The gear is used for a range of jobs, including helping with missing person searches, gathering images from crime scenes and major traffic accidents, and taking part in coastal and woodland searches to fight wildlife crime.

In the southwest of France, police are using the remotely controlled flying machines to catch dangerous drivers, while cops in Japan have them on standby to catch rogue drones flying in restricted airspace.

In the U.S., meanwhile, around 350 agencies, among them police and fire departments, have incorporated the technology into their work as of 2017. Uses include search and rescue, investigating active shooters and suspects, crime scene analysis, surveillance, and crowd monitoring.

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ASUS ZenFone 5 and ZenFone 5 Lite ditch the bezels

The ZenFone 5 ditches screen bezels and brings a little brother along to Barcelona.

Today at Mobile World Congress 2018, ASUS announced two new phones: the ZenFone 5 and the ZenFone 5 Lite. What they have in common is a huge aspect ratio display that gives users as much display area for the smallest body sizes possible.

The 6.2-inch full HD AMOLED display on the ZenFone 5 has a bezel that is hardly noticeable, barring a notch along the top for the earpiece and camera. It’s more than a pretty face, though. Inside the upper-end ZenFone 5Z is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with 4 GB of RAM and a 3300 mAh battery. ASUS is boasting new AI technology applied in the rear dual camera system that can automatically detect scenes and applies ideal settings accordingly. This AI engine adds a bunch of other conveniences, like automatically increasing or lowering call volume based on ambient sound, and monitoring your charging habits to prolong battery lifespan.

The ZenFone 5 Lite sports a 6-inch 18:9 full HD display, also reducing the bezels significantly. The major differentiator from the ZenFone 5 is a dual front-facing camera and front-facing LED flash, which is very much in line with the previous ZenFone Selfie series. The primary front-facing 20 megapixel Sony IMX376 camera has a relatively large f/2.0 aperture for sharper low-light photos. A second 120° wide angle camera on both sides ensures you can leave the selfie stick at home.

Those who have been following ASUS for awhile may recall that they actually made a ZenFone 5 in 2014. As an homage to that highly successful ZenFone, they’ve titled their unveiling event as #Backto5. This is the first time ASUS has had a major presence at Mobile World Congress, and to mark the occasion, they topped off the unveiling with a big concert by OK Go.

To catch up on the event and devices, you can follow the livestream replay here. Check out our hands-on from our own Daniel Bader over here.

Hyundai’s Kona Electric SUV boasts a 292-mile range

Hyundai’s newly bolstered EV strategy might be off to a good start. It just unveiled the Kona Electric, an adaptation of its crossover SUV that promises to combine both ample space with meaningful performance. The base edition’s 186-mile range and 9.3-second 0-62MPH time won’t raise eyebrows, but a long-range version can muster a 292-mile range and reach 62MPH in 7.6 seconds. That’s about as much range as a top-spec Tesla Model X — if you don’t need blistering acceleration or gobs of seating, you can get a very capable electric people hauler.

Logically, there’s a lot of tech inside the cabin as well. A 7-inch center touchscreen (with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay) and a heads-up display aren’t surprising in 2018, but you’ll also find paddle shifters that tweak the level of regenerative braking to suit your driving style and mileage demands. You’ll also see a raft of assists for collision avoidance (including pedestrians), blind spots, lane following and stop-and-go cruise control.

It’s not certain if and when the Kona Electric will reach the US (the current focus is on Europe), although the gas-powered original is making its US debut this spring. It wouldn’t be surprising if the EV edition comes to the country as well. SUVs remain intensely popular in the US, and the Kona’s range could make it practical for the sprawling American landscape.

Via: Autoblog

Source: Hyundai