Month: July 2017

Enlarge / WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 19: Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, President-elect Donald Trump's choice as Secretary of Energy, testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Capitol Hill January 19, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)

Last week, US Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry took a phone call from two men he thought were the Ukrainian Prime Minister and his translator. But the 22-minute-long phone call was actually two Russian pranksters, Vladimir “Vovan” Kuznetsov and Alexei “Lexus” Stolyarov, otherwise known as the “Jerky Boys of Russia,” in the style of an American prank call duo from the 1990s, according to Bloomberg.

The Washington Post confirmed the conversation with the Department of Energy. In audio originally posted on a Russian website and reposted elsewhere, the dialogue touched on a Baltic Sea pipeline that would pump Russian gas, as well as an expansion of coal and oil and gas interests in Ukraine. Early in the conversation, Secretary Perry tells the pranksters that “the [Trump] administration is broadly supportive of sanctions against Russia at this particular point in time,” and later he offers that “negotiation is always possible” on coal exports to Ukraine.

The Secretary also advised the “Prime Minister” that, without transparency about regulations and geological data about where wells have been or could be drilled, it would be hard for the US to help oil and gas companies expand exploration in Ukraine.

A blog post by EFF attorney Daniel Nazer about his selection for the "Stupid Patent of the Month" resulted in an Australian lawsuit and a $750,000 damage demand. EFF has challenged the Australian order in US federal court. (credit: EFF)

An Australian patent-holding company that's filed dozens of federal lawsuits can't seem to find its way into court, now that it's facing off with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Global Equity Management SA, or GEMSA, spent much of 2016 filing lawsuits against big companies in the Eastern District of Texas. It claimed various major websites—including Expedia, Zillow, and Airbnb—infringe its patents on "virtual cabinets."

The company's intensive campaign of lawsuits won it a special place in the pantheon of patent-holders, when GEMSA became the subject of EFF's long-running series, "Stupid Patent of the Month."

Enlarge / Texas' Eddie Bernice Johnson. (credit: Getty Images/Tom Williams)

Lamar Smith, head of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, has a penchant for releasing letters in which he complains about issues related to climate change. He has targeted everyone from state attorneys general who are investigating fossil fuel companies to NOAA scientists (and their e-mails).

But Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), the ranking Democrat on the committee, has released a letter or two herself, including one in which she sharply questioned whether Smith was appropriately overseeing scientific research. Now, Johnson and two other Democrats on the committee have turned their attention to Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The subject? Pruitt's plan to have the EPA engage in a show debate over our understanding of climate science.

For the letter, Johnson was joined by Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), fellow members of the Science Committee. The letter cites a Reuters report about Pruitt's idea of creating a "red team" with the goal of poking holes in our current scientific understanding of climate change. The letter notes that Pruitt has claimed that "there are lots of questions that have not been asked and answered" about climate change, though he hasn't clearly specified what those are.

Enlarge / Enjoy your little squabbles. You foolish men know nothing about AI. (credit: Universal Pictures)

Back in 2015, a group of business leaders and scientists published an "open letter" about how controlling artificial superintelligence might be the most urgent task of the twenty-first century. Signed by luminaries like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, the letter has defined debates over AI in the years since. Bill Gates said in a Reddit AMA that he agrees with the letter. But, at last, there is a high-profile skeptic: Facebook giant Mark Zuckerberg, who has just come out strongly against the idea that AI is a threat to humanity.

At a backyard barbecue over the weekend, Zuckerberg fielded questions from Facebook Live. One asked about AI, and the social media mogul launched into a passionate rant:

I have pretty strong opinions on this. I am optimistic. I think you can build things and the world gets better. But with AI especially, I am really optimistic. And I think people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios—I just, I don't understand it. It's really negative and in some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible

In the next five to 10 years, AI is going to deliver so many improvements in the quality of our lives... Whenever I hear people saying AI is going to hurt people in the future, I think, "yeah, you know, technology can generally always be used for good and bad, and you need to be careful about how you build it, and you need to be careful about what you build and how it is going to be used."

But people who are arguing for slowing down the process of building AI, I just find that really questionable. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that.

Zuckerberg was clearly referring to Musk and Gates here, and he is trying to set himself up in the reasonable alternative position. He mentioned that AI is right on the cusp of improving healthcare with disease diagnosis and saving lives with self-driving cars that get into fewer accidents. Musk has already replied dismissively on Twitter, saying that Zuckerberg has little understanding of AI.

Remember the Moto Z? The Lenovo-controlled redesign of Motorola's flagship smartphone bet the farm on a modular phone idea, and the modular system kind of sucked. The modules were expensive, only worked with brand-new Motorola smartphones, and didn't offer anything useful over a non-modular version of the same accessory. To limit the effect the bulky modules would have on the phone, Motorola slimmed the phone down as much as possible, resulting in the removal of the headphone jack. Motorola sacrificed a lot to make the modular phone idea work, but at the end of the day the modular system never delivered a compelling use case.

Motorola committed to the modular "Moto Mod" system for at least "two more generations" after the Moto Z, which doesn't leave the company much room to course correct. The "backpack" modular design demands an identical back shape to the Moto Z, with the same size camera bump and massive modular connector in the same place. So say hello to the Moto Z2 Force, the 2017 flagship for Motorola. It looks a lot like the Moto Z(1).

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock)

General Motors has announced plans to offer over-the-air software (OTA) updates "before 2020." Its CEO, Mary Barra, announced the plan on an analyst call on Tuesday. The capability will require the deployment of a new electric vehicle architecture and a new infotainment system. OTA updates are high on the tech-savvy car buyer's wishlist, but here in the US, most new cars are locked out of receiving them, thanks to a legal and contractual landscape between the OEMs and their dealer networks that is highly beneficial toward the latter.

Yes, it's not a technical issue; companies like Harman and others have the right systems to push out OTA updates to vehicles; the OEMs just aren't allowed to deploy them.

Boiled down to its essence, OEMs can't offer existing customers new features for their vehicles without the car dealerships getting their cut. This is in contrast to Tesla, which has done much to highlight the utility of OTA updates.

Enlarge / Child with a classic four-day rash from measles. (credit: CDC)

With firm vaccination campaigns, the US eliminated measles in 2000. The highly infectious virus was no longer constantly present in the country—no longer endemic. Since then, measles has only popped up when travelers carried it in, spurring mostly small outbreaks—ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred cases each year—that then fizzle out.

But all that may be about to change. With the rise of non-medical vaccine exemptions and delays, the country is backsliding toward endemic measles, Stanford and Baylor College of Medicine researchers warn this week. With extensive disease modeling, the researchers make clear just how close we are to seeing explosive, perhaps unshakeable, outbreaks.

According to results the researchers published in JAMA Pediatrics, a mere five-percent slip in measles-mumps-and-rubella (MMR) vaccination rates among kids aged two to 11 would triple measles cases in this age group and cost $2.1 million in public healthcare costs. And that’s just a small slice of the disease transmission outlook. Kids two to 11 years old only make up about 30 percent of the measles cases in current outbreaks. The number of cases would be much larger if the researchers had sufficient data to model the social mixing and immunization status of adults, teens, and infants under two.

Seems like the most appropriate use of this modified meme ever. (credit: Know Your Meme)

We don't often get buzzy about a new Netflix series announcement, especially one without any teaser footage, but Tuesday's Netflix news shook up the perfect jar of nerd bees.

Simpsons/Futurama co-creator Matt Groening is the latest showrunner to join the online streaming platform, and he's bringing a substantial number of Futurama staffers and voice actors to a new project: Disenchantment, set to premiere in "2018." From what we're hearing, this will put the Groening-series spin on fantasy series like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings—meaning, equal parts mockery and reverence. Twenty episodes have been ordered, and they will premiere in 10-episode chunks.

A ton of Futurama voice actors are participating, including Billy West, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, and Tress MacNeille. The show as announced will revolve around a "hard-drinking young princess" named Bean, voiced by Broad City star Abby Jacobsen, and her primary companions will include a personal demon voiced by Adult Swim super-weirdo Eric Andre and an elf voiced by comedian Nat Faxon. Longtime Simpsons showrunner Josh Weinstein will join Groening as an executive producer, while Futurama animation company Rough Draft Studios is currently working on the new series. (That series' final episode aired on Comedy Central in 2013.)