Innholdsfortegnelse for #238 i Techlife News

Self-driving cars are expected to usher in a new era of mobility, safety and convenience. The problem, say transportation researchers, is that people will use them too much. Experts foresee robot cars chauffeuring children to school, dance class and baseball practice. The disabled and elderly will have new mobility. Commuters will be able to work, sleep, eat or watch movies on the way to the office. People may stay home more because they can send their cars to do things like pick up groceries they’ve ordered online. Researchers believe the number of miles driven will skyrocket. It’s less certain whether that will mean a corresponding surge in traffic congestion, but it’s a clear possibility. Gary Silberg, an auto industry expert at accounting firm KPMG, compares it to the introduction of…

During the height of the migrant crisis in Europe last fall, Lasse Landt came to a startling realization. Thousands of migrants were pouring into Germany every day, but the 36-year-old startup consultant from Berlin hadn’t met a single one of them. “It was all over the media, every day on the talk shows you had people talking about the refugee crisis. I had never seen a refugee,” said Landt. “I just wanted to find out if it was real.” His experience is typical for most Germans, and many have volunteered with charitable groups in part to meet the migrants they’re hearing so much about. But Landt went further - and the result is a kind of dating website for Germans and migrants, albeit without the romantic aspect. Together with Khaled…

Investigators can now probe Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites as a part of background checks for security clearances - something that lawmakers said Friday was a classic case of the government playing catch-up with technology. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper signed a policy directive announced Friday that allows investigators to collect publicly available social media information pertaining to the person whose background is being checked. Unless there is a national security concern or the need to report a crime, any information pertaining to people who appear in the subject’s social media will not be investigated or pursued, the directive says. “It defied common sense for the government to overlook social media data available to anyone with an Internet connection,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the…

YouTube is testing a messaging feature in its smartphone app so people can share and discuss videos without resorting to other ways to connect with their friends and family. The messaging option announced Friday initially is only being offered to a small group of people with YouTube’s app installed on an iPhone or device running on Google’s Android software. If all goes well, messaging will be included in a future app update available to everyone with an iPhone or an Android phone. YouTube, part of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, is examining whether the messaging feature will encourage its audience to spend even more time inside its popular video app. Currently, people typically copy links to YouTube and paste them into text messages or other messaging apps such as Snapchat, Facebook Messenger…

A new cyberattack has been made against an unnamed bank, part of a coordinated campaign that follows February’s theft of $101 million from the Bangladesh central bank, the international money transfer supervisor Swift said Friday. Belgium-based Swift said Friday that attackers had used malware to target a PDF reader at a bank, which it did not name, allowing them to transfer money and tamper with bank documents. It did not say whether any money was taken but urged clients to urgently review their security systems. Swift said forensic experts believe the use of the malware is “not a single occurrence, but part of a wider and highly adaptive campaign targeting banks.” It underlined that the Swift system, which connects more than 11,000 banking and securities organizations as well as other…

“Captain America: Civil War” continued to flex its muscles in its second weekend in theaters, earning a box office-topping $72.6 million, according to actual sales figures reported by the studios on Monday. The superhero showdown has now earned $296 million in North America. “Civil War” easily beat the star-studded new opener “Money Monster,” which opened in third place behind “The Jungle Book” with $14.8 million. Even with big names like Julia Roberts and George Clooney, though, “Money Monster” cost only $27 million to produce. The micro budget horror movie“The Darkness” debuted in fourth place $5 million. The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as…

A short-handed Supreme Court dodged but kept alive a legal challenge Monday from faith-based groups over the Obama administration’s rules for cost-free access to birth control. It was the latest sign of justices struggling to find a majority for cases taken up before Justice Antonin Scalia’s death. The unsigned, unanimous opinion paved a way out of a politically thorny dispute for the eight-member court, which has split twice in 4-4 ties since the conservative jurist’s death in February. Yet it hardly settled the matter, even if President Barack Obama said the “practical effect is right now that women will still continue to be able to get contraception.” Deciding nothing but perhaps buying time, the justices asked lower courts to take another look at the issue in search of a compromise.…

Chinese tech giant Huawei wants Americans to start thinking of it as a stylish smartphone brand. Huawei Technologies Ltd., which pulled out of the U.S. market for network switching gear four years ago due to security fears, became the No. 3 global smartphone seller last year and passed Apple in China. This year, it launched a new flagship smartphone, the P9, and is positioning it to compete with Apple and Samsung. “China has yet to create a high-end consumer brand. We want to take that goal onto our shoulders,” Eric Xu, one of Huawei’s three rotating co-CEOs, told industry analysts at a meeting in April. To do that, Huawei must succeed in the United States the second- largest market for handsets after China, accounting for one-sixth of global sales, according…

An anti-counterfeiting group said Friday it was suspending Alibaba’s membership following an uproar by some companies that view the Chinese e-commerce giant as the world’s largest marketplace for fakes. The International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition told members that it had failed to inform the board of directors about conflicts of interest involving the group’s president, Robert Barchiesi. Earlier Friday, The Associated Press reported that Barchiesi had stock in Alibaba, had close ties to an Alibaba executive and had used family members to help run the coalition. The coalition, in a letter to members sent after the AP report came out, said conflicts weren’t disclosed to the board “because of a weakness in our corporate governance procedures.” It said the failure was not because of “inaction on Bob’s part,” referring to Barchiesi. The…

For Detroit, the days of simply making cars are over. Automakers are facing multiple threats to their business from nimble tech firms like Apple and Uber. In response, carmakers are reinventing themselves as “mobility” companies that can accommodate all the different ways people get around. Already this year, General Motors Co. has announced a long-term alliance with ride-hailing company Lyft and started a car-sharing service called Maven. Ford created a technology-focused division based in Silicon Valley that will invest in promising transportation startups. It also launched FordPass, a smartphone app that helps users find parking or share their cars. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is partnering with Google to test self-driving software in 100 of its minivans. In congested and expensive cities, people are increasingly content to share cars or summon rides…

Investors might question Warren Buffett’s long-standing aversion to tech stocks after his Berkshire Hathaway bought 9.8 million shares of Apple. Buffett has always avoided technology companies because he said it was too hard to pick which ones would prevail long term, although he made an exception to that rule to buy a major IBM stake in 2011. The stake comes with the company’s shares under considerable pressure. Billions in value have been wiped from the books since Apple reported a sizable drop in iPhone sales in late April. Shares, down 15 percent over the past month, jumped nearly 4 percent Monday. Buffett was also reported to be considering joining a bid to acquire Yahoo. But Buffett told CNBC Monday he would only act as a potential financing partner for Quicken…

Picture an 18-wheel truck barreling down the highway with 80,000 pounds of cargo and no one but a robot at the wheel. To many, that might seem a frightening idea, even at a time when a few dozen of Google’s driverless cars are cruising city streets in California, Texas, Washington and Arizona. But Anthony Levandowski, a robot-loving engineer who helped steer Google’s self-driving technology, is convinced autonomous big rigs will be the next big thing on the road to a safer transportation system. Levandowski left Google earlier this year to pursue his vision at Otto, a San Francisco startup the he co-founded with two other former Google employees, Lior Ron and Don Burnette, and another robotics expert, Claire Delaunay. Otto is aiming to equip trucks with software, sensors, lasers and…

Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co. is eyeing the movie business for growth. Company spokesman Makoto Wakae said Monday details are undecided but the work might be a theater release or a DVD. Nintendo, which makes the Wii U home console and Nintendo 3DS hand-held machine, has licensed its game characters in the past, such as with its Pokemon movies, but it is now thinking about make its own film content. It won’t become a full-fledged film studio, but filmmaking is an area it has chosen for future investment of proceeds from selling its stake in the major league Seattle Mariners, planned for later this year, according to Kyoto-based Nintendo. The Japanese daily newspaper Asahi reported Monday that Nintendo’s work might be 3-D animation. It said Nintendo is in talks…

As Hawaii pushes to meet its aggressive renewable energy goals, two companies have proposed offshore wind turbine projects for federal waters off Oahu. Their plans would use technology that floats the massive turbines in deep waters miles offshore. The proposals are in the early stages and would face years of environmental reviews and community meetings before possible approval. The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency that would decide whether to approve ocean leases for the projects, held a meeting about the proposals Monday. Two companies are proposing offshore wind farms. A.W. Hawaii Wind, a Texas company that’s a subsidiary of Denmark-based Alpha Wind Energy, is proposing two offshore floating wind farms, each generating about 400 megawatts of energy with 50 turbines. One is proposed for the northwest side…

Earlier this month, Apple announced that it had made a peculiar and unexpected move: investing $1 billion in Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-hailing service. Apple CEO Tim Cook was vague about the rationale behind his company pouring such a significant amount of its cash pile into Didi, though he cited “a number of strategic reasons, including a chance to learn more about certain segments of the China market”. This invites considerable speculation... That the lucrative deal was revealed only 22 days after initial talks commenced suggests that Apple and Didi were especially eager about collaborating with each other. Indeed, Didi President Jean Liu told Bloomberg that Cook is “an amazing, iconic leader”, adding: “It feels very natural to work with Apple together because philosophically on a company level we share a lot in common”.…

Fox’s fall schedule will feel like a trip to the multiplex, with its two new dramas being remakes of the popular movies “Lethal Weapon” and “The Exorcist” and a one-time new version of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” booked for Halloween week. The network unveiled its first season schedule in a decade and a half without “American Idol,” announcing a total of 11 new series. They include a short run of a familiar Fox franchise, “24: Legacy,” which will premiere in February directly after Fox’s broadcast of the Super Bowl. “Lethal Weapon,” which will air on Wednesday nights prior to Fox’s most popular show, “Empire,” stars Clayne Crawford and Damon Wayans, Sr. as the crime-fighting duo Riggs and Murtaugh. “The Exorcist” will air on Fridays, the story centered around two…

Pelé: Birth of a Legend This biographical movie follows the story of Brazilian soccer legend Pele’s rise from the slums of Sao Paulo to gaining Brazil its first World Cup victory at the age of 17. A must-see for any soccer fan. FIVE FACTS: 1. The film was initially planned to be released in conjunction with the FIFA World Cup 2014 but it was delayed due to an incomplete shoot. 2. A. R. Rahman composed the music for the movie. Rahman has also worked on several movies directed by legendary British director Danny Boyle, including Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours. 3. Seu Jorge, who plays the character of Dondinho in this film, played a character in Wes Anderson movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou named Pelé dos Santos. 4.…

It’s 100,000 laps around Earth and counting for the International Space Station. The space station reached the orbital milestone - 17 ½ years in the making - Monday morning. NASA said these 100,000 orbits are akin to traveling more than 2.6 billion miles. That’s equivalent to 10 round trips to Mars, or almost one way to Neptune. Each orbit takes about 90 minutes; 16 orbits comprise a station day. Astronauts have been living continuously aboard the 250-mile-high complex since 2000. Construction began two years before that. Since then, 222 people have lived or visited there, the vast majority of them- 189 - men, according to NASA. Altogether, there have been 47 permanent crews representing the U.S., Russian, Canadian, Japanese and European space agencies. Two Americans, three Russians and one Englishman…

Radio host Glenn Beck and American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks are some of the conservative leaders Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to meet with this week. The meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, follows a report that Facebook employed bias in the way it selected stories for its “Trending Topics” feature. A report in the tech blog Gizmodo claimed that Facebook downplays conservative news subjects. Facebook denies that report, which relied upon a single anonymous individual with self-described conservative leanings. Nonetheless, Zuckerberg said the Menlo Park, California, company is investigating the matter and has invited conservative leaders to meet with him. Others invited include Zac Moffatt, the co-founder of conservative technology company Targeted Victory, and Dana Perino, co-host of The Five on Fox News Channel. “I want to have a direct…

Many Twitter users - and more importantly, the billions more who don’t use Twitter - feel constrained by the company’s somewhat archaic 140. Whoops! That’s what happens when you hit the character limit imposed by Twitter. Is it time to ditch it as Twitter searches for ways to grow its stagnant user base? The limit was created so tweets would fit in a single text message, back when people used Twitter that way. But most people now use Twitter through its mobile app, where there isn’t the same technical constraint. And Twitter users already employ creative ways to get around it. They send out multi-part tweets, or take screenshots of text typed elsewhere. CEO Jack Dorsey, in such a screenshot that he tweeted in January, appeared amused by the fact…