Month: May 2018

Enlarge / A General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper. (credit: USAF / Airman First Class Adarius Petty)

Despite protests from employees, Google is still charging ahead with a Department of Defense collaboration to produce machine-learning software for drones. Google hasn't listened to a continent of its employees that are unhappy with Google's involvement in the military-industrial complex, and now a report from Gizmodo says "about a dozen" employees have resigned over the issue.

The controversial program is called "Project Maven," and it has Google applying its usual machine-learning and image-recognition expertise to millions of hours of drone footage collected by the military. The goal is to identify people and objects of interest. While a Google spokesperson says the program is "scoped for non-offensive purposes," a letter signed by almost 4,000 Google employees took issue with this assurance saying, "The technology is being built for the military, and once it's delivered, it could easily be used to assist in [lethal] tasks."

The petition asked that Google immediately cancel the project, saying "We believe that Google should not be in the business of war."

Enlarge / Hurricane Maria closes in on Puerto Rico in 2017. (credit: NOAA)

After the hyperactive 2017 Atlantic hurricane season—certainly the busiest and most destructive since at least 2005, and among the top five in the historical record—coastal residents in the United States, Caribbean Islands, and Mexico are understandably wary of what lies ahead. The Atlantic season officially begins this year on June 1.

Unfortunately, there's been a lot of hype. Back in March, forecasts of severe doom-and-gloom went viral on Facebook (but had absolutely no credibility). More recently, some news publications have assessed the seasonal outlooks from various organizations and have sounded the alarm. For example, the widely read Guardian web site predicted that this, "Hurricane season may be even worse in 2018 after a harrowing 2017."

That's unlikely. Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University, who produces the oldest, and most widely recognized seasonal hurricane forecast, expressed dismay at this kind of reporting. "Yeah, that's way too much hype," he told Ars. "Even if our forecast is perfect, we predicted seven hurricanes versus climatology, which is six. So, nothing like what was predicted last year."

Enlarge / Sign with logo at the headquarters of car-sharing technology company Uber in the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood of San Francisco, California, with red vehicle visible in the background parked on Market Street, October 13, 2017. (credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

Just over a year ago, an ex-Uber engineer, Susan Fowler, stepped forward with a harrowing tale of sexual harassment at her former company. That revelation kicked off 2017’s annus horribilis, a year during which Uber saw itself bouncing from one crisis to the next. The saga ultimately resulted in cofounder Travis Kalanick being booted from the CEO job.

On Tuesday morning, Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer, published a lengthy blog post proclaiming the end of mandatory arbitration for anyone (driver, rider, employee) associated with a claim of sexual assault or sexual harassment.

Uber is not the first major tech company to announce this change: Microsoft announced a similar move in December 2017.

SITREP: Germany's Typhoon problem. Click here for a transcript. (video link)

If you thought the US Department of Defense's procurement adventures with the F-35 and other big-budget weapons systems are bad, you might want to check out what's going on in Europe, where defense procurement battles have left most of the German Luftwaffe grounded for lack of parts.

Last week, at the annual Charlemagne Prize ceremony in Aachen, Germany—in which French President Emmanuel Macron was recognized for his efforts on behalf of European unity—German Prime Minister Angela Merkel pronounced that Europe could no longer depend on the United States for its protection. "Europe has to take its destiny into its own hands," Merkel said. "That is the task of the future."

Enlarge (credit: Patrick Breitenbach / Flickr)

Podcasters, you can now engage in your lengthy Maron opens without the feel of being legally targeted by a Texas company that many would consider to be a patent troll.

On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear the case of Personal Audio v. Electronic Frontier Foundation. In short, the case is all said and done.

As Ars reported in August 2017, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the April 2015 inter partes review (IPR) ruling—a process that allows anyone to challenge a patent’s validity at the US Patent and Trademark Office.