Lyft to develop self-driving car system
SAN FRANCISCO -- Lyft, the ride-hailing company, announced Friday that it was developing its own self-driving technology, marking yet another company's gamble that the future of transportation will be marked by self-driving cars.
Lyft is marking the occasion with the opening of a new self-driving-research facility in Palo Alto, Calif., and plans to heavily recruit new engineering and technical people for the facility after it opens in the coming weeks.
"We aren't thinking of our self-driving division as a side project. It's core to our business," said Luc Vincent, vice president of autonomous technology at Lyft. "That's why 10 percent of our engineers are already focused on developing self-driving technology -- and we'll continue to grow that team in the months ahead."
Uber, Lyft's much larger rival, has spent millions opening facilities in Pittsburgh, Toronto and San Francisco dedicated entirely to autonomous-vehicle research, while building its own hardware and software systems to operate the vehicles. And many other companies, from Alphabet's Waymo unit in Silicon Valley to major auto manufacturers in Detroit and Europe, are also working on autonomous-driving technology.
Lyft is taking a markedly different approach from Uber. While Uber's self-driving plans have mostly been a solo effort, Lyft has announced what it calls its Open Platform Initiative, a way to develop autonomous-vehicle technology in conjunction with automakers and technology companies.
-- The New York Times
China betting on AI boost to economy
China aims to make the artificial intelligence industry a "new, important" driver of economic expansion by 2020, according to a development plan issued by the State Council.
Policymakers want to be global leaders, with the AI industry generating more than $59 billion of output per year by 2025, according to an announcement from the Cabinet. Key development areas include AI software and hardware, intelligent robotics and vehicles, virtual reality and augmented reality, it said.
"Artificial intelligence has become the new focus of international competition," the report said. "We must take the initiative to firmly grasp the next stage of AI development to create a new competitive advantage, open the development of new industries and improve the protection of national security."
The plan highlights China's ambition to become a world power backed by its technology business giants, research centers and military, which are investing heavily in AI. Globally, the technology will contribute as much as $15.7 trillion to output by 2030, according to a PwC report last month. That's more than the current combined output of China and India.
-- Bloomberg News
U.K. targets gender stereotyping in ads
LONDON -- Britain's advertising authority said last week that commercials depicting hapless husbands and housework-burdened moms may be bad for the nation's health.
The Advertising Standards Authority said it would impose tighter regulation on what it called harmful gender stereotyping.
The regulator said a "tougher line" is needed on ads that feature stereotypical gender roles, including those that mock people for not conforming. Such ads restrict "the choices, aspirations and opportunities of children, young people and adults," it said.
The group, which has previously banned ads for suggesting it was desirable for young women to be too thin, said it won't ban all stereotypes, such as women cleaning or men doing home improvement jobs.
But ads that depict a woman having sole responsibility for cleaning up the family's mess, or showing "a man trying and failing to undertake simple parental or household tasks," could be banned.
Last month a group of firms including household-products giant Unilever launched the Unstereotype Alliance, a United Nations-backed campaign to banish gender stereotypes in advertising.
-- The Associated Press
Hackers reel in casino with fish tank
Hackers are constantly looking for new ways to access people's data. Most recently, the way was as simple as a fish tank.
The hackers attempted to acquire data from a North American casino by using an Internet-connected fish tank, according to a report released by cybersecurity firm Darktrace.
The fish tank had sensors connected to a PC that regulated the temperature, food and cleanliness of the tank.
"Somebody got into the fish tank and used it to move around into other areas [of the network] and sent out data," said Justin Fier, Darktrace's director of cyber intelligence.
The casino's name and the type of data stolen were not disclosed in the report for security reasons, Darktrace said. The report said 10 GB of data were sent out to a device in Finland.
"This one is the most entertaining and clever thinking by hackers I've seen," said Hemu Nigam, a former federal prosecutor for computer crimes and current chief executive of SSP Blue, a cybersecurity company.
The fish tank incident was one of nine unique threats mentioned in Darktrace's annual report of innovative hacks. Some of the other threats mentioned included hackers using company servers to acquire bitcoin, a digital form of currency, and former employees using their old login credentials to steal company data.
-- The Washington Post
AI, big data seen key to future advances
TOKYO -- Masayoshi Son, chief executive of SoftBank Group Corp., says artificial intelligence combined with data gathered by billions of sensors will bring on an "information revolution" that will benefit people more than the 19th century Industrial Revolution.
Son, Japan's richest person, told SoftBank customers and partners gathered at a Tokyo hotel last week that he believes big data will help treat cancer, deliver accident-free driving and grow safer food.
SoftBank, the first carrier to offer the Apple iPhone in Japan, has bought leading British semiconductor company ARM, and its acquisition of U.S. robotics pioneer Boston Dynamics, announced last month, is undergoing regulatory approval. Its investments have included Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba and Yahoo Japan.
Son set up a private fund last year for global investments in the technology sector, called Vision Fund, with the potential to grow to as much as $100 billion. He has won praise from President Donald Trump for promising to invest $50 billion in U.S. startups to create 50,000 jobs.
-- The Associated Press
SundayMonday Business on 07/24/2017