Lbiz

A recently published report in a U.S.-based magazine says Iran is likely using facial recognition technology to monitor women’s compliance with the country’s hijab law.

While there are other ways people can be identified, Wired magazine says Iran’s apparent use of facial recognition technology against women is “perhaps the first known instance of a government using face recognition to impose dress law on women based on religious belief.”

Iran announced late last year that it would begin to use recognition technology to monitor its women.

Wired said that since the protests that have erupted across Iran following the death of a young women who was arrested for wearing her headscarf improperly, Iranian women are reporting that they are being arrested for hijab infractions a day or two after attending protests, even though they had no interaction with police during the protests.

Tiandy, a Chinese company blacklisted by the U.S., is a likely provider of facial recognition technology to Iran, although neither it nor Iranian officials responded to a request for comment from Wired.

The company has in the past listed the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corp and other Iranian police and government agencies as customers. Tiandy also boasted on its website that its technology has helped China identify the country’s ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs.
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Concerns linger over Twitter’s stance on free expression and safety since Elon Musk took over the platform in a $44 billion deal.

Since taking ownership in late October, Musk has instituted changes including dissolving an oversight review channel, laying off a large portion of the team focused on combating misinformation, and suspending the accounts of several U.S. journalists.

Two media advocacy groups on Wednesday called on Musk to reverse course and implement policies to protect the right to legitimate information and press freedom.

In a joint letter to Twitter, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) voiced “alarm” that Musk had undermined the legitimacy of Twitter by dissolving the site’s oversight review panel that checked postings for their truthfulness and laying off the majority of Twitter staff who helped combat misinformation.

The journalists’ groups also criticized Musk for “arbitrarily reinstating the accounts of nefarious actors, including known spreaders of misinformation,” and its suspension of several reporters, including VOA’s chief national correspondent, Steve Herman.

“Twitter’s policies should be crafted and communicated in a transparent manner … not arbitrarily or based on the company leadership’s personal preferences, perceptions and frustrations,” said the two organizations.

The groups also said Musk should reinstate Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council to review content posted on the site and better monitor attempts to censor information and penalize some individuals, including many journalists.

“Transparency and democratic safeguards must replace Musk’s capricious, arbitrary decision-making,” said Christophe Deloire, secretary-general of RSF.

In December, Twitter notified members of the Trust and Safety Council that the advisory group had been dissolved.

The email to the group said Twitter would work with partners through smaller meetings and regional contacts, said CPJ, a media rights organization that was a member of the council along with RSF.

“Mechanisms such as the Trust and Safety Council help platforms like Twitter to understand how to address harm and counter behavior that targets journalists,” CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement. “Safety online can mean survival offline.”

Twitter also has continued its suspension of some journalists, saying it will restore their accounts only if certain posts are deleted.

Those suspended had tweeted about @ElonJet, an account that uses publicly available data to report on Musk’s private jet. That account was also suspended.

Musk had said on Twitter that the @Elonjet account and any accounts that linked to it were suspended because they violated Twitter’s anti-doxxing policy.

Doxxing is maliciously publishing a person’s private or identifying information — such a phone number or address — on the internet.

The @Elonjet Twitter account, however, used publicly available data. Additionally, none of the journalists who had tweeted about Musk and his shutdown of the account had tweeted location information for his plane. They did report that the @Elonjet account had moved to another platform and named the platform.

Some of the journalists have had their accounts restored after removing content. But VOA’s Herman is still suspended from the platform after refusing to remove tweets.

The veteran correspondent said he was notified this week that his appeal against the permanent suspension was denied. The reason: violating rules against “posting private information.”

Before the account was suspended, Herman had more than 111,000 followers.

“Based on what Musk has previously tweeted and recent media reports, I have concerns that if I don’t give into the demand to delete several posts and reactivate @W7VOA, my Twitter account will eventually be deleted for inactivity or auctioned off,” he told VOA.

Herman, like other journalists, migrated to other social media platforms including Mastodon, where he gained 40,000 followers. But, he said, “Neither platform has yet to achieve critical mass and thus the influence of Twitter, especially for journalists and policymakers.”
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Companies including GM, Ford, Google and solar energy producers said on Tuesday they would work together to establish standards for scaling up the use of virtual power plants (VPPs), systems for easing loads on electricity grids when supply is short.

Energy transition nonprofit RMI will host the initiative, the Virtual Power Plant Partnership (VP3), which will also aim to shape policy for promoting the use of the systems, the companies said.

Virtual power plants pool together thousands of decentralized energy resources like electric vehicles or electric heaters controlled by smart thermostats.

With permission from customers, they use advanced software to react to electricity shortages with such techniques as switching thousands of households’ batteries, like those in EVs, from charge to discharge mode or prompting electricity-using devices, such as water heaters, to back off their consumption.

VPPs are positioned for explosive growth in the United States, where the 2021 Inflation Reduction Act has created or enlarged tax incentives for electric cars, electric water heaters, solar panels and other devices whose output and consumption can be coordinated to smooth grid load.

RMI estimates that by 2030, VPPs could reduce U.S. peak demand by 60 gigawatts, the average consumption of 50 million households, and by more than 200 GW by 2050.

“Virtual power plants will enable grid planners and grid operators to (better manage) growing electricity demand from vehicles, from buildings and from industry, and make sure that the grid can stay reliable even in the face of ongoing extreme weather challenges and aging physical infrastructure,” said Mark Dyson, managing director with the carbon-free electricity program at RMI.

Rob Threlkeld, director of global energy strategy at General Motors GM.N, told Reuters that VP3 would be able to “show that EVs can become a reliable asset to the retail utility and or the retail transmission operator” and “can be an asset to a homeowner and to fleet customers.”

VPPs have already improved grid reliability in such countries as Germany and Australia and in some U.S. states.

During an extreme heat wave last August, wholesale market operator California Independent System Operator avoided blackouts by calling on all available resources, including VPPs, to dispatch electricity. Google Nest smart thermostats contributed to easing the load.

“That is increasingly going to be required to make sure that the grid remains resilient, that we avoid blackouts and that we enable the grid to become cleaner and greener,” said Parag Chokshi, director of Google’s Nest Renew.

Other founding members of VP3 include Ford F.N, SunPower SPWR.O and Sunrun RUN.O.
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A mission to launch the first satellites into orbit from Western Europe suffered an “anomaly” Tuesday, Virgin Orbit said.  

The U.S.-based company attempted its first international launch on Monday, using a modified jumbo jet to carry one of its rockets from Cornwall in southwestern England to the Atlantic Ocean where the rocket was released. The rocket was supposed to take nine small satellites for mixed civil and defense use into orbit.  

But about two hours after the plane took off, the company reported that the mission encountered a problem. 

“We appear to have an anomaly that has prevented us from reaching orbit. We are evaluating the information,” Virgin Orbit said on Twitter.  

Virgin Orbit, which is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange, was founded by British billionaire Richard Branson. It has previously completed four similar launches from California. 

Hundreds gathered for the launch cheered earlier as a repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft, named “Cosmic Girl,” took off from Cornwall late Monday. Around an hour into the flight, the plane released the rocket at around 35,000 feet (around 10,000 meters) over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland.  

The plane, piloted by a Royal Air Force pilot, returned to Cornwall after releasing the rocket. 

Some of the satellites are meant for U.K. defense monitoring, while others are for businesses such as those working in navigational technology. One Welsh company is looking to manufacture materials such as electronic components in space.  

U.K. officials had high hopes for the mission. Ian Annett, deputy chief executive at the U.K. Space Agency, said Monday it marked a “new era” for his country’s space industry. There was strong market demand for small satellite launches, Annett said, and the U.K. has ambitions to be “the hub of European launches.”  

In the past, satellites produced in the U.K. had to be sent to spaceports in other countries to make their journey into space. 

The mission was a collaboration between the U.K. Space Agency, the Royal Air Force, Virgin Orbit and Cornwall Council.  

The launch was originally planned for late last year, but it was postponed because of technical and regulatory issues. 
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The public school district in Seattle has filed a novel lawsuit against the tech giants behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, seeking to hold them accountable for the mental health crisis among youth.

Seattle Public Schools filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court. The 91-page complaint says the social media companies have created a public nuisance by targeting their products to children.

It blames them for worsening mental health and behavioral disorders including anxiety, depression, disordered eating and cyberbullying; making it more difficult to educate students; and forcing schools to take steps such as hiring additional mental health professionals, developing lesson plans about the effects of social media and providing additional training to teachers.

“Defendants have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth, hooking tens of millions of students across the country into positive feedback loops of excessive use and abuse of Defendants’ social media platforms,” the complaint said. “Worse, the content Defendants curate and direct to youth is too often harmful and exploitive ….”

While federal law — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — helps protect online companies from liability arising from what third-party users post on their platforms, the lawsuit argues that provision does not protect the tech giants’ behavior in this case.

“Plaintiff is not alleging Defendants are liable for what third-parties have said on Defendants’ platforms but, rather, for Defendants’ own conduct,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants affirmatively recommend and promote harmful content to youth, such as pro-anorexia and eating disorder content.”

In emailed statements Sunday, Google and Snap said they had worked to protect young people who use their platforms.

Snap launched an in-app support system called ‘Here For You’ in 2020, to help those who might be having a mental health or emotional crisis find expert resources, and it also has enabled settings that allow parents to see whom their children contact on Snapchat, though not the content of those messages. It also has recently expanded content about the new 988 suicide and crisis phone system in the U.S.

“We will continue working to make sure our platform is safe and to give Snapchatters dealing with mental health issues resources to help them deal with the challenges facing young people today,” the company said in a written statement.

José Castañeda, a spokesperson for Google, said Google, which owns YouTube, had also given parents the ability to set reminders, limit screen time and block certain types of content on their children’s devices.

“We have invested heavily in creating safe experiences for children across our platforms and have introduced strong protections and dedicated features to prioritize their well-being,” Castañeda said.

Meta and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit says that from 2009 to 2019, there was on average a 30% increase in the number of Seattle Public Schools students who reported feeling “so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row” that they stopped doing some typical activities.

The school district is asking the court to order the companies to stop creating a public nuisance, to award damages, and to pay for prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media.

While hundreds of families are pursuing lawsuits against the companies over the harm they allege their children suffered from social media, it’s not clear if any other school districts have filed a complaint like Seattle’s.

Internal studies revealed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021 showed that the company knew that Instagram negatively affected teenagers by harming their body image and making eating disorders and thoughts of suicide worse. She alleged that the platform prioritized profits over safety and hid its own research from investors and the public.
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Is the metaverse closer than we think?

It depends on whom you ask at CES, where companies are showing off innovations that could immerse us deeper into virtual reality, otherwise known as VR.

The metaverse — essentially a buzzword for three-dimensional virtual communities where people can meet, work and play — was a key theme during the four-day tech gathering in Las Vegas that ends Sunday.

Taiwanese tech giant HTC unveiled a high-end VR headset that aims to compete with market leader Meta, and a slew of other companies and startups touted augmented reality glasses and sensory technologies that can help users feel — and even smell — in a virtual environment.

Among them, Vermont-based OVR Technology showcased a headset containing a cartridge with eight primary aromas that can be combined to create different scents. It’s scheduled to be released later this year.

An earlier, business-focused version used primarily for marketing fragrances and beauty products is integrated into VR goggles and allows users to smell anything from a romantic bed of roses to a marshmallow roasting over a fire at a campsite.

The company says it aims to help consumers relax and is marketing the product, which comes with an app, as a sort of digital spa mixed with Instagram.

“We are entering an era in which extended reality will drive commerce, entertainment, education, social connection, and wellbeing,” the company’s CEO and co-founder Aaron Wisniewski said in a statement. “The quality of these experiences will be measured by how immersive and emotionally engaging they are. Scent imbues them with an unmatched power.”

But more robust and immersive uses of scent — and its close cousin, taste — are still further away on the innovation spectrum. Experts say even VR technologies that are more accessible are in the early days of their development and too expensive for many consumers to purchase.

The numbers show there’s waning interest. According to the research firm NPD Group, sales of VR headsets, which found popular use in gaming, declined by 2% last year, a sour note for companies betting big on more adoption.

Still, big companies like Microsoft and Meta are investing billions. And many others are joining the race to grab some market share in supporting technologies, including wearables that replicate touch.

Customers, though, aren’t always impressed by what they find. Ozan Ozaskinli, a tech consultant who traveled more than 29 hours from Istanbul to attend CES, suited up with yellow gloves and a black vest to test out a so-called haptics product, which relays sensations through buzzes and vibrations and stimulates our sense of touch.

Ozaskinli was attempting to punch in a code on a keypad that allowed him to pull a lever and unlock a box containing a shiny gemstone. But the experience was mostly a letdown.

“I think that’s far from reality right now,” Ozaskinli said. “But if I was considering it to replace Zoom meetings, why not? At least you can feel something.”

Proponents say widespread adoption of virtual reality will ultimately benefit different parts of society by essentially unlocking the ability to be with anyone, anywhere at any time. Though it’s too early to know what these technologies can do once they fully mature, companies looking to achieve the most immersive experiences for users are welcoming them with open arms.

Aurora Townsend, the chief marketing officer at Flare, a company slated to launch a VR dating app called Planet Theta next month, said her team is building its app to incorporate more sensations like touch once the technology becomes more widely available on the consumer market.

“Being able to feel the ground when you’re walking with your partner, or holding their hands while you’re doing that… subtle ways we engage people will change once haptic technology is fully immersive in VR,” Townsend said.

Still, it’s unlikely that many of these products will become widely used in the next few years, even in gaming, said Matthew Ball, a metaverse expert. Instead, he said the pioneers of adoption are likely to be fields that have higher budgets and more precise needs, such as bomb units using haptics and virtual reality to help with their work and others in the medical field.

In 2021, Johns Hopkins neurosurgeons said they used augmented reality to perform spinal fusion surgery and remove a cancerous tumor from a patient’s spine.

And optical technology from Lumus, an Israeli company that makes AR glasses, is already being used by underwater welders, fighter pilots and surgeons who want to monitor a patient’s vital signs or MRI scans during a procedure without having to look up at several screens, said David Goldman, vice president of marketing for the company.

Meanwhile, Xander, a Boston-based startup which makes smart glasses that display real-time captions of in-person conversations for people with hearing loss, will launch a pilot program with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs next month to test out some of its technology, said Alex Westner, the company’s co-founder and CEO. He said the agency will allow veterans who have appointments for hearing loss or other audio issues to try out the glasses in some of their clinics. And if it goes well, the agency would likely become a customer, Westner said.

Elsewhere, big companies from Walmart to Nike have been launching different initiatives in virtual reality. But it’s not clear how much they can benefit during the early stages of the technology. The consulting firm McKinsey says the metaverse could generate up to $5 trillion by 2030. But outside of gaming, much of today’s VR use remains somewhat of a marginal amusement, said Michael Kleeman, a tech strategist and visiting scholar at the University of California San Diego.

“When people are promoting this, what they have to answer is — where’s the value in this? Where’s the profit? Not what’s fun, what’s cute and what’s interesting.”

For more coverage of CES, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/technology
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The past year has been difficult for startups everywhere, but running a company in Ukraine during the Russian invasion comes with a whole different set of challenges.

Clinical psychologist Ivan Osadchyy brought his medical device, called Knopka, to this year’s consumer technology show known as CES in Las Vegas in hopes of getting it into U.S. hospitals.

His is one of a dozen Ukrainian startups backed by a government fund that are at CES this year to show their technology to the world.

“Two of our hospitals we operated before are ruined already and one is still occupied. So this is the biggest challenge,” Osadchyy said.

“The second challenge is for production and our team because they are shelling our electricity system and people are hard to work without lights, without heating in their flats,” he said.

Inspired by grandmother

He came up with the device after spending a year with his own grandmother in the hospital and finding that he had to track down nurses when she needed something.

The system works by notifying nurses when a patient has an abnormal heart rate, is due for treatment or otherwise needs help. The nurse can’t turn off their button until they’ve dealt with the issue.

“We are still working and operating because hospitals are open and we need to support them and provide efficiency and safety for patients as well,” he said.

Karina Kudriavtseva of the government-backed Ukrainian Startup Fund, says that, like Knopka, all the country’s startups have kept going since Russia’s invasion almost a year ago.

“The times have changed, their conditions have changed, but it can only make them stronger because all of the startups are working on the thing that to save the company, save the team, save the business, and save their lives, of course,” she said.

Conflict led to relocation, innovation

The invasion forced Valentyn Frechka to relocate to France, but he says his Releaf paper company has never stopped production.

When he was 16, Frechka decided to study alternative sources of cellulose in order to decrease deforestation. He’s now developed a technology that uses fallen leaves and recycled fiber to make paper.

The company’s main product is paper shopping bags, but they also make food packaging, egg trays and corrugated boxes.

Frechka said the conflict has forced the company to become more flexible and more open to opportunities.

“When this conflict happened and we located our company to France, we have found a lot of new partners and we have raised fundraising. We have raised the money for our needs,” he said. “So, it really makes us more open for the world.”
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Major tech companies are appealing to consumers’ evolving lifestyles, tastes and personal values with connected devices that touch on nearly every aspect of daily life. From the CES 2023 consumer technology show in Las Vegas, VOA’s Tina Trinh has the story. Video editor: Matt Dibble
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Tens of thousands of tech innovators and their fans are flocking to Las Vegas this week for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. Deana Mitchell has spotted some up-and-coming tech trends.
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With Russian rockets targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and electrical grid, scientists in the northern city of Sumy, some 330 kilometers east of Kyiv, are hoping to start mass producing solar technology that could help keep the lights on. Olena Adamenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera and video editing by Mykhailo Zaika.
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Amazon.com layoffs will now stretch to more than 18,000 jobs as part of a workforce reduction it previously disclosed, Chief Executive Andy Jassy said in a public staff note on Wednesday.

The layoff decisions, which Amazon will communicate starting January 18, will largely impact the company’s e-commerce and human-resources organizations, he said.

The cuts amount to 6% of Amazon’s roughly 300,000-person corporate workforce and represent a swift turn for a retailer that recently doubled its base pay ceiling to compete more aggressively for talent.

Jassy said in the note that annual planning “has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years.”

Amazon has more than 1.5 million workers including warehouse staff, making it America’s second-largest private employer after Walmart. It has braced for likely slower growth as soaring inflation encouraged businesses and consumers to cut back spending and its share price has halved in the past year.

Amazon began letting staff go in November from its devices division, with a source telling Reuters at the time it was targeting 10,000 job cuts.

In number, its layoffs now surpass the 11,000 job cuts at Facebook-parent Meta Platforms as well as reductions at other tech-industry peers.
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European Union regulators on Wednesday hit Facebook parent Meta with hundreds of millions in fines for privacy violations and banned the company from forcing users in the 27-nation bloc to agree to personalized ads based on their online activity. 

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission imposed two fines totaling 390 million euros ($414 million) in its decision in two cases that could shake up Meta’s business model of targeting users with ads based on what they do online. The company says it will appeal. 

A decision in a third case involving Meta’s WhatsApp messaging service is expected later this month. 

Meta and other Big Tech companies have come under pressure from the European Union’s privacy rules, which are some of the world’s strictest. Irish regulators have already slapped Meta with four other fines for data privacy infringements since 2021 that total more than 900 million euros and have a slew of other open cases against a number of Silicon Valley companies. 

Meta also faces regulatory headaches from EU antitrust officials in Brussels flexing their muscles against tech giants: They accused the company last month of distorting competition in classified ads. 

The Irish watchdog — Meta’s lead European data privacy regulator because its regional headquarters is in Dublin — fined the company 210 million euros for violations of EU data privacy rules involving Facebook and an additional 180 million euros for breaches involving Instagram. 

The decision stems from complaints filed in May 2018 when the 27-nation bloc’s privacy rules, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, took effect. 

Previously, Meta relied on getting informed consent from users to process their personal data to serve them with personalized, or behavioral, ads, which are based on what users search for online, the websites they visit or the videos they click on. 

When GDPR came into force, the company changed the legal basis under which it processes user data by adding a clause to the terms of service for advertisements, effectively forcing users to agree that their data could be used. That violates EU privacy rules. 

The Irish watchdog initially sided with Meta but changed its position after its draft decision was sent to a board of EU data protection regulators, many of whom objected. 

In its final decision, the Irish watchdog said Meta “is not entitled to rely on the ‘contract’ legal basis” to deliver behavioral ads on Facebook and Instagram. 

Meta said in a statement that “we strongly believe our approach respects GDPR, and we’re therefore disappointed by these decisions and intend to appeal both the substance of the rulings and the fines.” 

Meta has three months to ensure its “processing operations” comply with the EU rules, though the ruling doesn’t specify what the company has to do. Meta noted that the decision doesn’t prevent it from displaying personalized ads, it only covers the legal basis for handling user data. 

Max Schrems, the Austrian lawyer and privacy activist who filed the complaints, said the ruling could deal a big blow to the company’s profits in the EU, because “people now need to be asked if they want their data to be used for ads or not” and can change their mind at any time. 

“The decision also ensures a level playing field with other advertisers that also need to get opt-in consent,” he said. 

Making changes to comply with the decision could add to costs for a company already facing rising business challenges. Meta reported two straight quarters of declining revenue as advertising sales dropped because of competition from TikTok, and it laid off 11,000 workers amid broader tech industry woes. 

 
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CES 2023 opens this week in Las Vegas. After an unusually low turnout last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues, organizers say the consumer electronics show is back in full swing. VOA’s Julie Taboh shows us some of what to expect.
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Drone advances in Ukraine have accelerated a long-anticipated technology trend that could soon bring the world’s first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield, inaugurating a new age of warfare.

The longer the war lasts, the more likely it becomes that drones will be used to identify, select and attack targets without help from humans, according to military analysts, combatants and artificial intelligence researchers.

That would mark a revolution in military technology as profound as the introduction of the machine gun. Ukraine already has semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons endowed with AI. Russia also claims to possess AI weaponry, though the claims are unproven. But there are no confirmed instances of a nation putting into combat robots that have killed entirely on their own.

Experts say it may be only a matter of time before either Russia or Ukraine, or both, deploy them. The sense of inevitability extends to activists, who have tried for years to ban killer drones but now believe they must settle for trying to restrict the weapons’ offensive use.

Ukraine’s digital transformation minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, agrees that fully autonomous killer drones are “a logical and inevitable next step” in weapons development. He said Ukraine has been doing “a lot of R&D in this direction.”

“I think that the potential for this is great in the next six months,” Fedorov told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Ukrainian Lt. Col. Yaroslav Honchar, co-founder of the combat drone innovation nonprofit Aerorozvidka, said in a recent interview near the front that human war fighters simply cannot process information and make decisions as quickly as machines.

Ukrainian military leaders currently prohibit the use of fully independent lethal weapons, although that could change, he said.

“We have not crossed this line yet – and I say ‘yet’ because I don’t know what will happen in the future,” said Honchar, whose group has spearheaded drone innovation in Ukraine, converting cheap commercial drones into lethal weapons.

Russia could obtain autonomous AI from Iran or elsewhere. The long-range Shahed-136 exploding drones supplied by Iran have crippled Ukrainian power plants and terrorized civilians but are not especially smart. Iran has other drones in its evolving arsenal that it says feature AI.

Without a great deal of trouble, Ukraine could make its semi-autonomous weaponized drones fully independent in order to better survive battlefield jamming, their Western manufacturers say.

Those drones include the U.S.-made Switchblade 600 and the Polish Warmate, which both currently require a human to choose targets over a live video feed. AI finishes the job. The drones, technically known as “loitering munitions,” can hover for minutes over a target, awaiting a clean shot.

“The technology to achieve a fully autonomous mission with Switchblade pretty much exists today,” said Wahid Nawabi, CEO of AeroVironment, its maker. That will require a policy change — to remove the human from the decision-making loop — that he estimates is three years away.

Drones can already recognize targets such as armored vehicles using cataloged images. But there is disagreement over whether the technology is reliable enough to ensure that the machines don’t err and take the lives of noncombatants.

The AP asked the defense ministries of Ukraine and Russia if they have used autonomous weapons offensively – and whether they would agree not to use them if the other side similarly agreed. Neither responded.

If either side were to go on the attack with full AI, it might not even be a first.

An inconclusive U.N. report last year suggested that killer robots debuted in Libya’s internecine conflict in 2020, when Turkish-made Kargu-2 drones in full-automatic mode killed an unspecified number of combatants.

A spokesman for STM, the manufacturer, said the report was based on “speculative, unverified” information and “should not be taken seriously.” He told the AP the Kargu-2 cannot attack a target until the operator tells it to do so.

Honchar thinks Russia, whose attacks on Ukrainian civilians have shown little regard for international law, would have used killer autonomous drones by now if the Kremlin had them.

“I don’t think they’d have any scruples,” agreed Adam Bartosiewicz, vice president of WB Group, which makes the Warmate.

AI is a priority for Russia. President Vladimir Putin said in 2017 that whoever dominates that technology will rule the world. In a December 21 speech, he expressed confidence in the Russian arms industry’s ability to embed AI in war machines, stressing that “the most effective weapons systems are those that operate quickly and practically in an automatic mode.” Russian officials already claim their Lancet drone can operate with full autonomy.

An effort to lay international ground rules for military drones has so far been fruitless. Nine years of informal United Nations talks in Geneva made little headway, with major powers including the United States and Russia opposing a ban. The last session, in December, ended with no new round scheduled.

Toby Walsh, an Australian academic who campaigns against killer robots, hopes to achieve a consensus on some limits, including a ban on systems that use facial recognition and other data to identify or attack individuals or categories of people.

“If we are not careful, they are going to proliferate much more easily than nuclear weapons,” said Walsh, author of Machines Behaving Badly. “If you can get a robot to kill one person, you can get it to kill a thousand.”

Multiple countries, and every branch of the U.S. military, are developing drones that can attack in deadly synchronized swarms, according to Zachary Kallenborn, a George Mason University weapons innovation analyst.

So will future wars become a fight to the last drone?

That’s what Putin predicted in a 2017 televised chat with engineering students: “When one party’s drones are destroyed by drones of another, it will have no other choice but to surrender.”
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The Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest technology trade show in the world, is once again open for business.

After two challenging years coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, which was particularly difficult for the conference and trade show industry, CES is expected to welcome about 100,000 attendees this week in Las Vegas.

That’s down about 40% from CES 2020 but still a significant jump in the numbers who attended in 2022. Over the past two years, CES managed to put on its show, which was all digital in 2021 and a hybrid digital and in-person in 2022 amid the Omicron surge.

This year, the Consumer Technology Association, the trade organization that puts on the annual event, says about one-third of the attendees are coming from outside the U.S.

“On the exhibitor side, a significant number come from outside of the U.S., making CES a truly global event,” said John Kelley, vice president and acting show director for CES, who spoke with VOA via Skype.

In fact, of the estimated 3,200 exhibitors who are expected to show off their wares, more than 1,400, or 43%, are coming from outside the U.S.

In the African pavilion, a dozen companies from the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be showcasing their homegrown innovations. The Ukraine pavilion will include technology firms from the Eastern European nation under siege by Russian forces.

Organizers also expect hundreds of Chinese firms to exhibit, despite recent COVID-related requirements for people traveling from China to the U.S.

“The Chinese presence at CES has always been quite pronounced and we’re starting to see it come back this year, which is quite exciting,” Kelley said.

Digital health, transportation technology and the metaverse are just a few of the latest technological innovations being showcased in Las Vegas.

Addressing global concerns

This year’s theme is technology helping to address the world’s greatest challenges, said Kelley.

“We’ve partnered with a U.N.-affiliated group, the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, to showcase how technology is supporting what we call human securities, or human rights,” he said, which includes food, political and environmental security, and mobility.

Show organizers expect increased focus on the metaverse — a shared digital reality connecting users — and on Web3, also known as Web 3.0, which proponents describe as the third generation of the World Wide Web.

CES has partnered with CoinDesk, a news site specializing in bitcoin and digital currencies, to build a studio on the show floor to showcase these types of Web3 applications, including blockchain and crypto.

Cool cars and trash-collecting sharks

From the internet highway to the interstate, automobiles have always had a major presence at the show, with more than 300 auto industry exhibitors showing off their latest products.

Organizers say there is also growth in marine technology, with boat manufacturers moving toward sustainable forms of energy.

The battery-operated WasteShark by the Dutch firm RanMarine Technology is an autonomous surface vessel designed to remove algae, biomass, and floating pollution such as plastics from lakes, ponds, and other coastal waterways.

“There’s a lot of people doing really great stuff out in the ocean and cleaning that up,” said company CEO Richard Hardiman, who spoke with VOA via Skype.

“Our mandate for our company is to clean it before it goes into the ocean,” he said. “So we’re trying to, sort of, what we call, ‘capture that waste at source,’ before it pollutes the ocean.”

Digital health

Another area that’s grown significantly at CES is digital health, CTA’s Kelley said. Dozens of exhibitors will be showcasing the latest health technologies, including new applications and diagnostic tools.

“What this does is give consumers access to their information, access to their data, and allows them to make decisions based on the data that they receive,” he said.

Canadian-based eSight Eyewear plans to display a headset designed to help people with visual impairments such as age-related macular degeneration, also known as AMD.

“When a person with AMD looks at your face, they wouldn’t see any distinct features; it would just be flesh tones,” explained Roland Mattern, eSight Eyewear’s director of marketing, who spoke with VOA via Skype.

Once the user puts on the device, they will be able to see distinct features such eyebrows, mouth and eyes, Mattern said.

“Users can literally see your entire face,” he said. “Your reaction. And that is an important feature because so much of communication is being able to see the other person’s reaction.”

It’s just one example of the many technologies on display this year at CES 2023, where companies from all corners of the world will come together to share their latest innovations.
…

The latest leaps in artificial intelligence in everything from cars to robots to appliances will be on full display at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opening Thursday in Las Vegas.

Forced by the pandemic to go virtual in 2021 and hybrid last year, tens of thousands of show-goers are hoping for a return to packed halls and rapid-fire deal-making that were long the hallmark of the annual gadget extravaganza.

“In 2022, it was a shadow of itself — empty halls, no meetings in hotel rooms,” Avi Greengart, an analyst at Techsponential told Agence France-Presse. “Now, [we expect] crowds, trouble getting around and meetings behind closed doors — which is what a trade show is all about.”

The CES show officially opens Thursday, but companies will begin to vie for the spotlight with the latest tech wizardry as early as Tuesday.

CES will be spread over more than seven hectares, from the sprawling Las Vegas Convention Center to pavilions set up in parking lots. Ballrooms and banquet rooms across Sin City will be used to hustle up business.

With transportation now computing’s new frontier, next generation autos, trucks, boats, farm equipment, and even flying machines are expected to grab attention, according to analysts.

“It’s going to feel almost like you’re at an auto show,” said Kevan Yalowitz, head of platform strategy at Accenture.

More than ever, cars now come with operating systems so much like a smartphone or laptop computer, Accenture expects that by 2040 about 40% of vehicles on the road will need software updated remotely.

And with connected cars come apps and online entertainment as developers battle to grab passenger attention with streaming or shopping services on board.

Electric vehicles enhanced with artificial intelligence will also be on display “in a big way,” Greengart said.

“What has really been the buzz is personalized flying machines,” said independent tech analyst Rob Enderle. “Basically, they are human-carrying drones.”

Led by Zuckerberg’s Meta, immersive virtual worlds referred to as the metaverse are seen by some as the future of the ever-evolving internet, despite widespread criticism that the billionaire CEO is over-investing in an unproven sector.

After being a major theme at CES last year, virtual reality headgear aimed at transporting people to the metaverse is expected to again figure prominently. 

Formerly known as Facebook, Meta will be allowing selected guests to try its latest Oculus Quest virtual reality headset, trying to persuade doubters that the company’s pivot to the metaverse was the right one.

Web 3

Gadgets or services pitched as being part of the next-generation of the internet — or “Web 3” — are also expected to include mixed reality gear as well as blockchain technology and NFTs.

Web 3 promises a more decentralized internet where tech giants, big business or governments no longer hold all the keys to life online.

“The idea of how we are going to connect is going to be part of the big trend at CES,” said Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi.

Analysts had expected cryptocurrencies to be touted among Web 3 innovations at the show, but there “could be pullback” because of the implosion of cryptocurrency platform FTX and the arrest of its boss Sam Bankman-Fried, according to Milanesi.

CES offerings will likely show effects of the pandemic, since products designed during a time of lockdowns and remote work will now be heading for market even if lifestyles are returning to pre-COVID habits, noted Greengart.

Health, environment

Tech designed to better assess health and connect remotely with care providers will also be strong at CES.

And though the show is unabashedly devoted to consumerism, the environment will also be a theme from gadgets designed to scoop trash from waterways to apps that help people cut down on energy use.

A lot of companies are eliminating plastic from packaging and shifting to biodegradable materials, while also trying to reduce carbon emissions, according to analysts.

“If you are the kind of person who is off the grid growing vegetables, then CES is not for you,” Greengart said. “But I do commend companies that find ways to make their products and the supply chain more sustainable.” 

 
…

Marie Rodriguez of Bountiful, Utah, began using social media when she enlisted in the U.S. Navy. At first, she saw it as a positive thing.

“It helped me to really keep in touch with people at home while I was deployed and living overseas,” she told VOA.

However, in the two months since Tesla CEO Elon Musk acquired Twitter, Rodriguez and many of its hundreds of millions of users have been forced to reevaluate their feelings about the platform and about social media in general.

“I don’t think he’s been positive at all,” Rodriguez said. “He’s allowing all of these previously banned accounts back on the platform, and I’m seeing more offensive Tweets — more anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ hate speech.”

“Some social media platforms over-patrol,” she added, “but Twitter isn’t patrolling enough. The result is more trolling, more bots and more hate. I’ve definitely been using the platform less because of it.”

Musk is a polarizing figure among Americans. In his own self-created poll on the platform, 57.5% of respondents said he should resign as Twitter chief, compared to 42.5% who said he should stay. (Musk has said he will abide by the poll’s results and resign his post as soon as a replacement is hired.)

Independent surveys, however, have shown Musk’s actions to be less unpopular than his Twitter poll indicated. A Quinnipiac University survey from earlier this month, for example, found that Americans’ opinions are more evenly split, with 37% saying they approved of the way he’s operating Twitter, 37% disapproving and 25% offering no opinion.

“I’m generally critical of billionaires,” said Avi Gupta, a neurobiologist in the nation’s capital, “but I’m so far supportive of what Musk has done for Twitter. As far as free speech is concerned, definitely, but also the platform’s just a lot more exciting to follow.”

A new Twitter

Gupta said he became disenchanted with rival social media platform Instagram when he posted a photo of Ukrainian soldiers who appeared to be wearing patches containing Nazi symbols. The post was promptly removed by administrators.

“To me, in that example, what Instagram is saying is that reporting on Nazism is no different than glorifying it,” Gupta explained. “It’s a form of censorship, but it was happening in pre-Musk Twitter, too. They were too quick to suspend accounts when they challenged mainstream thinking — whether it be about the Ukraine war, U.S. military interventions or COVID.”

“Since Musk,” he added, “I don’t have to censor myself as much, and you’re seeing previously banned accounts from politicians and scientists welcomed back. You have to balance that with stopping dangerous hate speech, of course — which I think they’re doing OK with — but overall, I think it’s been a good thing.”

According to University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication Professor Damian Radcliffe, Musk arrived at Twitter with an entrepreneurial reputation and a desire to grow the platform that appealed to many users.

Others, however, expressed concerns about what Musk’s commitment to freedom of speech and a scaling back of platform moderation might mean, as well as the implications of users now being able to purchase a verified “blue check” account.

“Those worries seem to have been justified,” Radcliffe told VOA. “I personally have seen a lot of people I follow leave the platform. They’re pointing to a less civil discourse, as well as a greater prevalence of misinformation, hate speech and conspiracy theories in their feed as the main reasons they’re departing.”

In the two months since he took over, Musk has reinstated several previously banned Twitter accounts — most notably that of former U.S. President Donald Trump, though Trump eschewed the platform after his reinstatement. Musk has also banned (and sometimes reinstated) the accounts of several journalists.

“It’s been wild to watch as he came in talking about free speech,” said Ron Gubitz, executive director of a New Orleans nonprofit organization. “But then, all of a sudden, he’s suspending journalists’ accounts, banning an account tracking his jet, and — albeit temporarily — saying we couldn’t post links to other social media.”

Gubitz is a self-described “Twitter head,” having been on the platform for more than 14 years. He said he’s been disappointed in how it has operated since Musk’s purchase.

“Initially it was annoying because the discourse was all about Musk,” he said to VOA. “What is Musk saying? What is he going to do? It felt middle-school gossipy.”

“But the user interface has also actually gotten worse since he took over,” Gubitz added. “The platform isn’t updating well for me, it’s not adding enough new tweets, there are ads at the top of the screen every time I refresh and the whole thing just feels less secure. I’m cool with change, but this is going in the wrong direction.”

America’s relationship with social media

“I use Twitter less and less every day and I’ve actually removed the app from my phone,” said Kimm Rogers, a musician from San Diego, California. “I used to see tweets from the people I follow, but now my feed shows me [acquitted Wisconsin shooter] Kyle Rittenhouse, Elon Musk and [Texas Republican Senator] Ted Cruz. There’s a lot more hate especially towards black people, LGBTQ and Jewish people. There’s also more porn showing up in my feed as well as lots of disinformation over vaccines and the war in Ukraine.”

“It’s just hard on my psyche to see the lack of common decency and the cruelty often inflicted on others on this site,” Rogers added, “It diminishes my view of humanity.”

Polls show opinions on the direction of Twitter are often connected to political leanings. Quinnipiac’s December poll showed that 63% of Republican respondents said they viewed Musk favorably, while only 9% of Democrats said the same.

Many left-leaning users have threatened to leave the platform entirely. According to information from the Twitter analytics firm Bot Sentinel, approximately 877,000 accounts were deactivated in the week after Musk purchased Twitter. Nearly 500,000 were temporarily suspended. In total, that’s more than double the usual number and has included prominent celebrities who cited a rise in hate speech and the banning of journalists as their reason for leaving.

More recently, some users have organized “Twitter Walk-out Days” in which they log off for a period of time in protest. Others have threatened to move to other social media platforms that better align with their values.

If those users do move on, Nicole Dahmen, professor at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, says it won’t be the first time users shifted away from a form of technology.

“Leaving Twitter is the latest iteration of unfriending Facebook a decade ago or killing your television in the 1980s,” Dahmen told VOA. “There are valid reasons to consume and participate with these mediums and there are even more valid reasons to leave them. They’ve ultimately trivialized American discourse, and our political, social and emotional health has suffered.”

But it’s not just Twitter that appears to be experiencing a plateauing of popularity around the world. From 2018 to 2022, average daily social media use increased by only five minutes — from 142 minutes to 147 minutes — according to Statista.com. During the previous four years, average social media use increased by a whopping 38 minutes per day.

Sense of community

“Social media can be a great thing in how it creates a sense of community and allows us to find commonalities,” said Ivory Burnett of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Burnett said she prefers Twitter over other platforms because it encourages what she sees as more authentic, “less cosmetic” interactions.

“When used for good, it’s the megaphone for an entire generation,” she told VOA. “But it also results in bullying, misunderstanding and crowd-thinking that makes it easier to spread hate and harm.”

But, like so many who, despite their frustrations with the platform, say they don’t want to start over elsewhere after dedicating so many years to building a following on Twitter, Burnett said she has no intention of leaving.

“Leave? I’ve never considered leaving,” she said and laughed. “I’ll be here until my login stops working.”
…

The popular Chinese video app TikTok has been banned from all U.S. House of Representatives-managed devices, according to the House’s administration arm, mimicking a law soon to go into effect banning the app from all U.S. government devices.

The app is considered “high risk due to a number of security issues,” the House’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) said in a message sent on Tuesday to all lawmakers and staff and must be deleted from all devices managed by the House.

The new rule follows a series of moves by U.S. state governments to ban TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd, from government devices. As of last week, 19 states have at least partially blocked the app from state-managed devices over concerns that the Chinese government could use the app to track Americans and censor content.

The $1.66 trillion omnibus spending bill, passed last week to fund the U.S. government through September 30, 2023, includes a provision to ban the app on federally managed devices and will take effect once President Joe Biden signs the legislation into law.

“With the passage of the Omnibus that banned TikTok on executive branch devices, the CAO worked with the Committee on House Administration to implement a similar policy for the House,” a spokesperson for the Chief Administrative Officer told Reuters on Tuesday.

The message to staff said anyone with TikTok on their device would be contacted about removing it, and future downloads of the app were prohibited.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new rule.

U.S. lawmakers have put forward a proposal to implement a nationwide ban on the app.
…

Taking to the air could be one solution to help get around traffic jams on city highways. Genia Dulot reports from Los Angeles on plans to get air taxis flying in time for the city’s 2028 Summer Olympics.
…

The end of 2022 saw major layoffs at Twitter, Amazon, Salesforce and Snap. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, had its first layoffs ever, cutting about 13% of its staff. Deana Mitchell looks at what the tech job losses mean for the future.
…

Virtual reality, an immersive technology embraced by gamers, has moved into medicine, where it is used for stress relief, physical therapy, pain management and other applications. Mike O’Sullivan has more.

 
…

Nearly a week after Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk said that the accounts of suspended journalists would be reinstated, at least six remain blocked.

Voice of America’s chief national correspondent, Steve Herman, is among them. Twitter suspended the accounts Dec. 15 over posts about another removed account — @Elonjet — which uses public data to track Musk’s private jet and other aircraft.

On Thursday, the Government Accountability Project (GAP), a Washington-based whistleblower protection and advocacy organization, filed a complaint to Congress over the suspension of Herman and other journalists.

“All of this is disturbing,” GAP’s Senior Counsel David Seide wrote in a letter addressed to the House and Senate commerce committees. “For no rational reason, Twitter and Mr. Musk wrongly muzzled and continue to muzzle Voice of America’s reporter and at least five other journalists. We ask you to continue to review this mistreatment and, if you believe warranted, investigate further.”

The letter, shared with VOA, said that Musk “abused his authority by acting arbitrarily and capriciously” in suspending and continuing to block several prominent journalists from the social media platform.

Twitter did not immediately respond to VOA’s request for comment, sent in a direct message via the platform.

Twitter appeals

Early Saturday morning, Musk announced on Twitter that the “accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now.”

To other Twitter users, Herman’s account looked as if it were back to normal.

But when Herman opened the app later that day, he was met with a notification saying he could regain access only if he deleted three tweets that referenced the @Elonjet account — or he could file an appeal.

Herman chose the latter option, he told VOA, “not realizing that put me in an even deeper level of purgatory.”

Making it seem as if his account was reactivated was “disingenuous at best,” Herman said.

Other journalists had similar experiences, including Matt Binder of Mashable, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, Micah Lee of The Intercept, Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Donie O’Sullivan of CNN and freelance reporters Aaron Rupar and Tony Webster.

VOA spoke with several of these reporters, who all said they were not surprised at being suspended.

Rupar and Webster told VOA they opted to delete the tweets in question to regain full access to their accounts, but the other six refused, so remain locked out.

Twitter told them they will be barred until specified posts are deleted.

“I will not delete the tweets because I feel there was nothing wrong with those tweets, and deleting them would be an admission that I did something wrong,” Herman said. “The only way I will tweet again is if my account is reinstated unconditionally.”

Mashable’s Binder was briefly unsuspended Saturday, but he says he was locked out again after asking a Twitter official which company policy he had broken.

He appealed the ruling instead of deleting the offending tweet but said that Twitter denied the request.

Now journalists are “going to have to be cautious about how they disseminate their reporting on Twitter because Elon Musk can just choose on a whim to change policy,” Binder told VOA in an interview. “We’ve seen it already.”

GAP’s Seide said suspensions over @Elonjet tweets do not bode well for press freedom on Twitter.

“It’s especially concerning because it’s so arbitrary and innocuous,” he told VOA. “If they can force journalists to censor themselves on innocuous issues, they plainly do that on other issues, too.”

Webster, a freelance reporter based in Minneapolis, said Twitter has played a big role in building an audience for his work. Because of that, he deleted the requested tweets to regain access.

Still, getting suspended has changed how he engages with the platform, he told VOA.

“It’s really chilling to have to be so careful about what to say,” he said. “You just worry about what might happen in the future if you say something that might be upsetting to Elon Musk.”

Even though Webster is back on Twitter, he said he no longer trusts the platform and plans to use the social media platform Mastodon more.

The Intercept’s Lee told VOA he will not delete the tweet that got him suspended.

That journalists now risk facing arbitrary censorship “basically just proves that Twitter is no longer a viable platform,” he said, adding that he believes it is important to “diversify what social media you use.”

VOA’s public relations team on Thursday confirmed Herman’s account had not been reinstated.

In an emailed statement when Herman was first suspended, VOA spokesperson Nigel Gibbs said, “As Chief National Correspondent, Mr. Herman covers international and national news stories, and this suspension impedes his ability to perform his duties as a journalist.”

Musk had said on Twitter that the @Elonjet account and any accounts that linked to it were suspended because they violated Twitter’s anti-doxxing policy.

Doxxing is when someone maliciously publishes private or identifying information about someone — like their phone number or address — on the internet, according to Clayton Weimers, executive director of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) U.S. office.

The @Elonjet Twitter account, however, used publicly available data. Additionally, none of the journalists who had tweeted about Musk and his shutdown of the account had tweeted location information for his plane.

Doxxing is an increasingly common intimidation tactic to target journalists over their coverage, Weimers said.

“The risk here is that [Musk is] really lowering the barrier for what we’re considering doxxing and weaponizing it against journalists in a way that doesn’t make journalists or other public officials any safer on the platform,” Weimers said.

Twitter has historically been slow to respond to genuine doxxing attacks, Weimers said.

Musk also dissolved Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, of which RSF was a longtime member. Made up of human and civil rights groups, the 100-member advisory group advised on policies to respond to hate speech and other issues on Twitter.

Since Twitter is Musk’s private company, “there’s an argument to be made that it’s his $44 billion plaything, and he can make the rules as he sees fit,” Herman acknowledged. “And if he wants to turn it into the online equivalent of a private country club, then he probably legally can.”

Herman said he has not spoken with any of the other journalists in the suspended-from-Twitter club.

“I’ve been pretty busy,” he said. “But I think some of us are following each other on Mastodon now.”
…

Between the close of this year’s climate conference in Sharm el Sheikh and the 2023 climate event slated for December 2023 in the UAE, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are all working to position themselves as new electric vehicle powerhouses.

Signaling an era where next-generation electric vehicles are made in a region most strongly associated with fossil fuels, manufacturers in the three countries are seeing new forms of government backing and technology-driven partnerships with international automotive companies.  

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has set the most ambitious targets for electric vehicle manufacturing.

Last month Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched the first Saudi vehicle brand Ceer to design, manufacture, and sell sedans and sports utility vehicles targeting consumers in the kingdom and the broader Middle East.

Ceer is a joint venture between the Saudi Public Investment Fund and Chinese manufacturing conglomerate Foxconn, which will license component technology from BMW.

“Energy and transport developments are very close to the crown prince’s heart. that’s why he put the Ceer company under the umbrella of the Public Investment Fund, which he directly oversees,” said Joseph Salem, lead Travel & Transport partner at Arthur D. Little in Riyadh.

The country aims to manufacture more than 150,000 electric cars annually by 2026.

Today, every vehicle on the road in Saudi Arabia is an import.

“The crown prince approved the aggressive set targets for EV adoption,” said Salem.

Salem’s firm is working with Saudi officials to implement policies that incentivize replacing a fleet dominated by internal combustion engine cars and buses with electric vehicles.

The consultant said environmental imperatives and emissions commitments made by the Saudi government to the world are the main driver of the push to build EVs in the kingdom.

“However, there’s also an economic element that is related to the equation,” Salem explained. 

“Today the mobility sector is wholly driven by carbon-emission vehicles. To move these vehicles, you have to use oil which is currently sold locally at a price that is subsidized by the government.”

“By building electric vehicles locally, they can save the oil and export it to the external market. The same logic applies toward renewable energy production efforts in the kingdom,” Salem said.

Egypt

Past attempts to build so-called “national” cars in the region have faltered over quality issues and a lack of brand enthusiasm.

In the early 1960s, the Egyptian-built compact “Ramses” symbolized the county’s drive for self-sufficiency.

While promoted by Egypt’s post-colonial leader, President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ramses’ five-to-six-cars per day assembly line and reputation for mechanical unreliability doomed the national brand.

Nasser kept his presidential vehicle, a 1962 Cadillac Fleetwood.

By 1972, the state-owned Al-Nasr Automotive factory discontinued Ramses’ production.

The Al-Nasr company switched to producing Fiat models licensed by Turkish manufacturer Tofaş.

In January, President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi reprised notes of Nasserist ambition, telling the World Youth Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh that he was personally committed to seeing EVs built in Egypt.

“We have moved quickly to establish a partnership with many companies to produce electric cars in Egypt,” El-Sisi said. “Starting in 2023, we will produce the first Egyptian electric car.”

At the same event, Hisham Tawfiq, Minister for Public Enterprises, announced that military-owned Al-Nasr Automotive was negotiating with Chinese auto manufacturers to fulfill the presidential directive.

Meanwhile, in the country’s private sector, General Motors and its Egyptian partner Al Mansour Automotive are building a facility to roll out Cadillac’s all-electric midsize luxury SUV Lyriq in Egypt by the end of next year.

GM Middle East plans to launch 13 all-new EVs, building an EV line-up that includes the Chevrolet Bolt Electric Utility, a Hummer EV.

In the run-up to the locally hosted COP 27 conference, Egypt made visible strides in building a network of DC fast-charging charging stations required by an electric fleet.

Infinity Power- a joint venture between Egypt’s Infinity Energy company and the UAE firm Masdar- is already operating around 440 charging points across the country.

The company feeds the network electricity from the massive 37.2 square kilometer (14.4 square mile) Benban solar park in Aswan.

“We expect to see up to seven thousand more electrical vehicles on the road in 2023 with an annual 10% increase going forward,” said marketing director Karim El Gazzar.  “We are fulfilling the government’s plans to build a robust ecosystem for EVs.”

Turkey

In 1961 Turkish President Cemal Gürsel summoned a group of local engineers to build a car wholly designed and produced in Turkey called Devrim.

That vehicle barely made it through a Republic Day test run from Istanbul to Ankara -and clocked an even shorter production run than Egypt’s Ramses.

But five decades of steady partnerships with Fiat, Renault, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and Ford have helped Turkey rank at number thirteen in the world for automobile production.

Last year cars, trucks, motor vehicle parts, and accessories were the country’s top export earning $25 billion in revenue for Turkey.

Trucks, light commercial vehicles, and buses have been a particular stand out for Turkey, accounting for almost 40 percent of its automotive industry in 2020.

And 2022 has seen Turkish assembly lines producing and selling EVs in the truck and bus sector.  

Ford Otosan, a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and Koç Holding, shipped the all-electric E-Transit cargo van in April, just two months after customers in the U.S. started receiving orders from the company’s Kansas City plant in Missouri.

According to a company statement, Ford Otosan’s plant in Kocaeli, Turkey, plans to start production of the Transit Custom’s %100 electric version in the second half of 2023.

“Ford Otosan is investing more than two billion dollars and growing employment by around 3,000 to increase vehicle production capacity, including for the next-generation Transit Custom model,” said general manager Güven Özyurt.

Meanwhile, the Bursa-based manufacturer Karsan is leading in the electric minibus and bus field, accounting for 90% of Turkey’s exports.

The company’s electric buses are already on the roads in 16 countries, including the U.S.. Karsan operates its autonomous e-ATAK on a 4-kilometer route at Michigan State University just 140 km northwest of the American automobile capital of Detroit.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is voicing his enthusiasm for the electric vehicle industry.

“With mass production, the name of our country and our brands in this sector will be well known. Erdoğan said. “The world is moving towards clean energy, and we will never fall behind in this field.”

Erdoğan is visibly associated with the new Turkish e-vehicle manufacturer Togg which aims to produce 175,000 midsize SUV’s a year at its 4,300-worker Gemlik Campus located about 125 km south of Istanbul.  

In an October echo of his predecessor Gürsel, the president took First Lady Emine Erdoğan along for a test drive of the Togg on Republic Day.

“Of course, Turkey has the engineering talent and manufacturing capacity to build a top-line electric car,” said Kaan Kurşun, an Istanbul entrepreneur and co-investor with Lorenzo Schmid in the Swiss “mindset” electric vehicle prototype built in 2008.

“I wish the team at Togg could have developed an authentic brand story instead of peddling it as President Erdoğan’s car. Yes, he has many supporters in Turkey, but I don’t think that will be compelling for consumers in Dubai or Dublin, “said Kurşun. 
…

French authorities plan to use an AI-assisted crowd control system to monitor people during the 2024 Paris Olympics, according to a draft law seen by AFP on Thursday.

The system is intended to allow the security services to detect disturbances and potential problems more easily, but will not use facial recognition technology, the bill says.

The technology could be particularly useful during the highly ambitious open-air opening ceremony  with Olympians sailing down the river Seine in front of a crowd of 600,000 people.

French police and sports authorities faced severe criticism in May after shambolic scenes during the Champions League final in Paris when football fans were caught in a crowd crush and teargassed.

The draft law, which was presented to the cabinet on Thursday, proposes other security measures including the use of full-body scanners and increases the sentences for hooliganism.

Organizers and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin have both argued in favor of using so-called “intelligent” security camera software that scans images for suspect or dangerous behavior.

The use of such a system during the Olympics is an “experimentation”, the draft law says, but could be applied for future public events which face terrorism-related or crowd control risks.

“No biometric data is used, nor facial recognition technology and it does not enable any link or interconnection or automatic flagging with any other personal data system,” the bill states.

The games’ organizing committee said on November 21 that it needed to lift its budget estimate by 10 per cent from 3.98 billion euros to 4.48bn euros, partly as a result of inflation.

Rather than opening the games in an athletics stadium as is customary, organizers have planned a ceremony on July 26, 2024 with a flotilla of some 200 boats sailing down the river Seine.

The banks of the river can accommodate 100,000 people who will have to buy tickets, while another 500,000 are set to watch for free from the street level, according to government estimates.

The draft law is expected to be debated in parliament in January where the minority government of President Emmanuel Macron will need support from opposition groups to pass it.
…

If not Elon, then who?

That’s a question many are contemplating since Elon Musk, Twitter’s CEO, said this week he was actively looking for a new leader to run the social media network.

Musk’s proclamation comes after more than 10 million respondents said in a Musk-created Twitter poll that he should resign. Musk followed up with a tweet that he would resign as soon as he found someone “foolish enough to take the job.”

It was one of many twists in the company’s chaotic restructuring since Musk took over in late October, a period that has included mass layoffs and resignations, advertisers fleeing, policy changes and reversals, and the suspension of some journalists’ accounts.

Musk’s management style is “break-it-to-build it,” said Andrew Miller, chief growth officer at Interbrand North America, a global brand consultancy.

Not a typical turnaround

The new Twitter CEO search has many wondering who could possibly do it. Musk would remain Twitter’s owner, and the task of turning around a beleaguered, long-underperforming company would be daunting.

“There’s a fairly large risk of being terminated or being forced to resign,” said Andy Wu, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who researches tech entrepreneurship and strategy. “So it’s got to be someone comfortable with that outcome.”

Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, the electric vehicle firm, had reportedly planned to be in the Twitter CEO position for only a few months. In recent weeks, Tesla investors have clamored for Musk to devote more time to the car company.

Some industry observers see Musk’s poll as a way to prime the public for a planned passing of the Twitter leadership baton.

“I think he was ready to do that, and he wanted to do it with a dramatic flair,” said Richard Hagberg, a leadership coach and psychologist who has worked with Silicon Valley CEOs and entrepreneurs.

Doing damage control

“He would never admit defeat, but maybe he recognizes that the problems he’s having with the Tesla board and some of the bad PR that’s coming his way is damaging his brand,” Hagberg added.

In addition to Tesla and Twitter, Musk is also the CEO of SpaceX, the satellite and rocket manufacturer.

Whoever takes on the role of Twitter CEO will have to share Musk’s vision for the company and contend with his involvement. Musk has a history of not relinquishing control at his other firms, Wu said.

“Elon Musk was supposed to just be an investor of Tesla, he’s actually not a founder, and he couldn’t hold himself back and had to make himself CEO,” said Wu, of the Harvard Business School. “If that’s any precedent, then this is a situation where his bias would be to hold onto power.”

Musk’s apparent fixation with creating headlines and causing a public stir also might make it harder to step down entirely from Twitter, some observers say. Musk is expected to be Twitter’s top influencer sometime in January, set to pass @BarackObama, the former U.S. president’s account, which is currently No. 1 at 130 million Twitter followers.

“Elon Musk is certainly conscious of his public persona, and this is one channel by which he directly impacts his own public persona,” Wu said. “This is one that will be especially difficult for him to step away from.”

Whether Musk stays involved in Twitter’s day-to-day operations or becomes a quiet owner, his potential CEO replacement will have other big tasks — cost cutting, revenue generating, and putting Twitter on a course to succeed.

For that, a cooler, more dispassionate temperament than Musk’s can be useful, Wu said.

“A lot of these cuts that they’re going through right now are financially necessary, and so we need someone that’s prepared to be in that position,” he said.

Some industry observers point to Musk’s inner circle for possible successors, such as former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey or venture capitalist David Sacks. Others speculate it could be a seasoned tech executive from the outside, such as former chief operating officer of Facebook — now Meta — Sheryl Sandberg.

Inspiring with a higher purpose

Whoever it is, the new leader of Twitter will need to appeal to employees’ sense of a higher purpose.

“They need to believe in the mission that overcomes the daily practicalities of the lives that we live, otherwise that style is not going to work, because you’re asking people to go well beyond what any manager should ask of its employees. And it has to start from within,” said Miller at Interbrand.

Musk has had some success doing this, rallying Tesla employees around the idea of a climate change solution vis-a-vis electric vehicles, or inspiring SpaceX workers with the dream of going to Mars. Musk also tried to rally Twitter employees around the idea of broadening free speech on Twitter, with mixed results.

Hagberg classifies Musk as a “visionary evangelist,” which he defines as a leader with a vision for the future who also can be egocentric. It’s hard to imagine two visionary evangelist leaders at Twitter. Regardless, the new CEO will have some work to do to woo what may be a rattled workforce, observers say.

“If you want people to support you,” Hagberg said, “you need to understand how to systematically get them to buy into what you’re trying to do.”
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Elon Musk said Tuesday that he plans on remaining as Twitter’s CEO until he can find someone willing to replace him in the job. 

Musk’s announcement came after millions of Twitter users asked him to step down in an unscientific poll the billionaire himself created and promised to abide by. 

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” Musk tweeted. “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.” 

Since taking over San Francisco-based Twitter in late October, Musk’s run as CEO has been marked by quickly issued rules and policies that have often been withdrawn or changed soon after being made public. 

He has also alienated some investors in his electric vehicle company Tesla who are concerned that Twitter is taking too much of his attention. 

Some of Musk’s actions have unnerved Twitter advertisers and turned off users. They include laying off half of Twitter’s workforce, letting go contract content moderators and disbanding a council of trust and safety advisors that the company formed in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform. 

Musk, who also helms the SpaceX rocket company, has previously acknowledged how difficult it will be to find someone to take over as Twitter CEO. 

Bantering with Twitter followers last Sunday, he said that the person replacing him “must like pain a lot” to run a company that he said has been “in the fast lane to bankruptcy.” 

“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk tweeted. 

As things stand, Musk would still retain overwhelming influence over platform as its owner. He fired the company’s board of directors soon after taking control. 
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Elon Musk had an eventful year, capping 2022 with a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, a takeover that almost didn’t happen. The controversial CEO has brought changes and disruptions, layoffs and resignations that put Twitter’s fate into question. VOA’s Tina Trinh has more.
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More than half of 17.5 million users who responded to a poll that asked whether billionaire Elon Musk should step down as head of Twitter voted yes when the poll closed on Monday. 

There was no immediate announcement from Twitter, or Musk, about whether that would happen, though he said that he would abide by the results. 

Musk has clashed with some users on multiple fronts and on Sunday, he asked Twitter users to decide if he should stay in charge of the social media platform after acknowledging he made a mistake in launching new speech restrictions that banned mentions of rival social media websites. 

In yet another significant policy change, Twitter had announced that users will no longer be able to link to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and other platforms the company described as “prohibited.” 

But that decision generated so much immediate criticism, including from past defenders of Twitter’s new billionaire owner, that Musk promised not to make any more major policy changes without an online survey of users. 

The action to block competitors was Musk’s latest attempt to crack down on certain speech after he shut down a Twitter account last week that was tracking the flights of his private jet. 

The banned platforms included mainstream websites such as Facebook and Instagram, and upstart rivals Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post and former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social. Twitter gave no explanation for why the blacklist included those seven websites but not others such as Parler, TikTok or LinkedIn. 

Twitter had said it would at least temporarily suspend accounts that include the banned websites in their profile — a practice so widespread it would have been difficult to enforce the restrictions on Twitter’s millions of users around the world. Not only links but attempts to bypass the ban by spelling out “instagram dot com” could have led to a suspension, the company said. 

A test case was the prominent venture capitalist Paul Graham, who in the past has praised Musk but on Sunday told his 1.5 million Twitter followers that this was the “last straw” and to find him on Mastodon. His Twitter account was promptly suspended, and soon after restored as Musk promised to reverse the policy implemented just hours earlier. 

Musk said Twitter will still suspend some accounts according to the policy but “only when that account’s (asterisk)primary(asterisk) purpose is promotion of competitors.” 

Twitter previously took action to block links to Mastodon after its main Twitter account tweeted about the @ElonJet controversy last week. Mastodon has grown rapidly in recent weeks as an alternative for Twitter users who are unhappy with Musk’s overhaul of Twitter since he bought the company for $44 billion in late October and began restoring accounts that ran afoul of the previous Twitter leadership’s rules against hateful conduct and other harms. 

Musk permanently banned the @ElonJet account on Wednesday, then changed Twitter’s rules to prohibit the sharing of another person’s current location without their consent. He then took aim at journalists who were writing about the jet-tracking account, which can still be found on other social media sites, alleging that they were broadcasting “basically assassination coordinates.” 

He used that to justify Twitter’s moves last week to suspend the accounts of numerous journalists who cover the social media platform and Musk, among them reporters working for The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and other publications. Many of those accounts were restored following an online poll by Musk. 

Then, over the weekend, The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz became the latest journalist to be temporarily banned. She said she was suspended after posting a message on Twitter tagging Musk and requesting an interview. 

Sally Buzbee, The Washington Post’s executive editor, called it an “arbitrary suspension of another Post journalist” that further undermined Musk’s promise to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech. 

“Again, the suspension occurred with no warning, process or explanation — this time as our reporter merely sought comment from Musk for a story,” Buzbee said. By midday Sunday, Lorenz’s account was restored, as was the tweet she thought had triggered her suspension. 

Musk’s promise to let users decide his future role at Twitter through an unscientific online survey appeared to come out of nowhere Sunday, though he had also promised in November that a reorganization was happening soon. 

Musk was questioned in court on Nov. 16 about how he splits his time among Tesla and his other companies, including SpaceX and Twitter. Musk had to testify in Delaware’s Court of Chancery over a shareholder’s challenge to Musk’s potentially $55 billion compensation plan as CEO of the electric car company. 

Musk said he never intended to be CEO of Tesla, and that he didn’t want to be chief executive of any other companies either, preferring to see himself as an engineer instead. Musk also said he expected an organizational restructuring of Twitter to be completed in the next week or so. It’s been more than a month since he said that. 

In public banter with Twitter followers Sunday, Musk expressed pessimism about the prospects for a new CEO, saying that person “must like pain a lot” to run a company that “has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy.” 

“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk tweeted. 
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