Western Union Admits to Aiding Wire Fraud, to Pay $586 Million
January 23rd, 2017Via: Reuters:
Western Union Co, the world’s biggest money-transfer company, agreed to pay $586 million and admitted to turning a blind eye as criminals used its service for money laundering and fraud, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.
Western Union, which has over half a million locations in more than 200 countries, admitted “to aiding and abetting wire fraud” by allowing scammers to process transactions, even when the company realized its agents were helping scammers avoid detection, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission said in statements.
With the help of Western Union agents, Chinese immigrants used the service to send hundreds of millions of dollars to pay human smugglers, wiring the money in smaller increments to avoid federal reporting requirements, U.S. authorities said.
Fraudsters offering fake prizes and job opportunities swindled tens of thousands of U.S. consumers, giving Western Union agents a cut in return for processing the payments, authorities said.
Trump Tells Business Leaders He Wants to Cut Regulations by 75% or ‘Maybe More’
January 23rd, 2017Via: CNBC:
President Donald Trump on Monday told a range of business leaders that he believes his administration can cut regulations by 75 percent or “maybe more.”
At the White House with 10 senior executives, he repeated his campaign pledges to roll back rules on companies, arguing that they have “gotten out of control.” A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request to comment on which rules Trump will specifically target or how the 75 percent was calculated.
Facial Recognition to Replace Passports in Security Overhaul at Australian Airports
January 23rd, 2017Via: Guardian:
A radical overhaul of security at Australia’s international airports is the first step towards the government’s goal of automating 90% of air traveller processing by 2020.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection will start moving towards a “contactless” system for arrivals this year, Fairfax reported on Sunday – the most ambitious stage of the Seamless Traveller initiative announced in 2015.
Incoming paper passenger cards would be abolished and manned stations would be replaced by electronic stations and automatic triage.
Passengers would not need to show their passports, instead being processed by biometric recognition of their faces, irises and/or fingerprints.
Under the new system, the existing SmartGates that scan passports electronically – introduced less than 10 years ago – would be retired.
Research Credit: Jb
Wyoming Wants to Ban Sale of Electricity from Large Scale Wind and Solar Projects within State
January 22nd, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Via: Christian Science Monitor:
While renewable-energy use has grown substantially over the last few years, the regulatory environment remains volatile.
Some states have worked hard to stimulate renewable energy, supporting infrastructure projects and offering incentives to consumers who install home solar arrays.
But others have tried to restrict renewable energy, often at the behest of lobbyists for electric utilities and fossil-fuel providers that fear its growth.
One of the states in the latter category is Wyoming, where Republican legislators recently introduced a bill that would essentially ban large-scale renewable energy in the state.
The new Wyoming bill would forbid utilities from using solar or wind sources for their electricity by 2019, according to Inside Climate News.
Foxconn Weighs $7 Billion U.S. Factory With Apple
January 22nd, 2017In other news, Foxconn Plans to Replace Almost Every Human Worker with Robots. So, I’d take the 30,000 to 50,000 jobs statement below with a grain of salt.
Via: Bloomberg:
Foxconn Technology Group Chairman Terry Gou told reporters in Taipei the company is considering a joint investment with Apple Inc. for a display manufacturing facility in the U.S., according to a report by the Nikkei Asian Review.
The facility would cost more than $7 billion and may create an eventual 30,000 to 50,000 jobs, the publication cited Gou as saying. The rising demand for larger displays makes domestic U.S. production a better solution than shipping from China and “Apple is willing to invest in the facility together because they need the (panels) as well,” he said.
A New Era of Mass Surveillance is Emerging Across Europe
January 22nd, 2017Via: Just Security:
In recent months, and in the wake of a series of terrorist attacks across Europe, Germany, France and the United Kingdom — Europe’s biggest superpowers — have passed laws granting their surveillance agencies virtually unfettered power to conduct bulk interception of communications across Europe and beyond, with limited to no effective oversight or procedural safeguards from abuse.
The same political leaders and legislators that once rebuked the NSA on the ethics of its mass surveillance practices, seem to now be taking a page out of the NSA’s playbook.
Tesla’s Second Generation Autopilot Could Reduce Crash Rate by 90%, Says CEO Elon Musk
January 21st, 2017Whatever you think about autonomous drive technologies, my point with posting these stories is not to be a cheerleader one way or another. I just want to be sure everyone knows that this stuff is real and it is coming.
Millions of drivers will lose their jobs, and these are not minimum wage, burger flipping jobs:
Carmaking giants and ride-sharing upstarts racing to put autonomous vehicles on the road are dead set on replacing drivers, and that includes truckers. Trucks without human hands at the wheel could be on American roads within a decade, say analysts and industry executives.
At risk is one of the most common jobs in many states, and one of the last remaining careers that offer middle-class pay to those without a college degree. There are 1.7 million truckers in America, and another 1.7 million drivers of taxis, buses and delivery vehicles. That compares with 4.1 million construction workers.
While factory jobs have gushed out of the country over the last decade, trucking has grown and pay has risen. Truckers make $42,500 per year on average, putting them firmly in the middle class.
There are lots of implications besides jobs (convenience, safety, surveillance, police state control/remote kill switch, etc), but my guess is that the jobs issue is the elephant in the room.
Via: Electrek:
Following the release of data from the first year of Tesla’s first generation Autopilot and the revelation that it reduced the crash rate of its vehicles by about 40%, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that the Autopilot team aims for the second generation hardware to reduce the crash rate by 90%.
If achieved, it would mean that all of Tesla’s vehicles produced since October 2016 would crash on average only once for every ten crashes by vehicles without the advanced driver assist system.
That’s 1.3 crash per million miles before Autopilot’s Autosteer feature down to 0.8 crash per million miles after Autosteer – a 40% reduction in crash rate verified by NHTSA – and now they are aiming for 0.1 crash per million miles after the introduction of what the company has been calling ‘Enhanced Autosteer’ with Tesla’s second generation Autopilot hardware.
Making AI Systems That See The World As Humans Do
January 20th, 2017Via: PhysOrg:
A Northwestern University team developed a new computational model that performs at human levels on a standard intelligence test. This work is an important step toward making artificial intelligence systems that see and understand the world as humans do.
“The model performs in the 75th percentile for American adults, making it better than average,” said Northwestern Engineering’s Ken Forbus. “The problems that are hard for people are also hard for the model, providing additional evidence that its operation is capturing some important properties of human cognition.”
Open Thread: Donald Trump Sworn in as 45th President of the United States
January 20th, 2017Via: AP:
Pledging to empower America’s “forgotten men and women,” Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States Friday, taking command of a deeply divided nation and ushering in an unpredictable era in Washington. His victory gives Republicans control of the White House for the first time in eight years.
Looking out over the crowd sprawled across the National Mall, Trump painted a bleak picture of the nation he now leads, lamenting crime, shuttered factories and depleted American leadership. He vowed to stir “new national pride,” bring jobs back to the United States, and “eradicate completely” Islamic terrorism.
“From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only, ‘America First,” Trump said in a 16-minute address, echoing one of the core messages of his improbable presidential campaign.
