Google’s AI Is Making Traffic Lights More Efficient and Less Annoying | A Monkey Got a New Kidney From a Pig—and Lived for 2 Years | Caroline Ellison Says She and Sam Bankman-Fried Lied for Years | The Latest on Resort Fees

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� � � � � � Google's AI Is Making Traffic Lights More Efficient and Less Annoying - WIRED    Each time a driver in Seattle meets a red light, they wait about 20 seconds on average before it turns green again, according to vehicle and smartphone data collected by analytics company Inrix. The delays cause annoyance and expel in Seattle alone an estimated 1,000 metric tons or more of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each day. With a little help from new Google AI software, the toll on both the environment and drivers is beginning to drop significantly. Seattle is among a dozen cities across four continents, including Jakarta, Rio de Janeiro, and Hamburg, optimizing some traffic signals based on insights from driving data from Google Maps, aiming to reduce emissions from idling vehicles. The project analyzes data from Maps users using AI algorithms and has initially led to timing tweaks at 70 intersections. By Google's preliminary accounting of traffic before and after adjustments tested last year and this year, its AI-powered recommendations for timing out the busy lights cut as many as 30 percent of stops and 10 percent of emissions for 30 million cars a month. Google announced those early results today along with other updates to projects that use its data and AI researchers to drive greater environmental sustainability. The company is expanding to India and Indonesia the fuel-efficient routing feature in Maps, which directs drivers onto roads with less traffic or uphill driving, and it is introducing flight-routing suggestions to air traffic controllers for Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and northwest Germany to reduce climate-warming contrails. Continued here � � � � � � Don't like ads? Go ad-free with TradeBriefs Premium A Monkey Got a New Kidney From a Pig—and Lived for 2 Years - WIRED    Around the world, there aren't enough donor kidneys available for everyone who needs one. Scientists are hoping pig kidneys could help ease the shortage, but first they must make sure the organs can keep working after transplant. In a step toward that goal, Massachusetts-based biotech company eGenesis reports today that a kidney from a genetically engineered pig functioned in monkeys for more than two years. The results appear in the journal Nature. Kidneys remove waste, produce urine, and balance fluids in the body. In the United States alone, nearly 88,000 people are waiting for a kidney donation, according to data from the federal Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. In 2022, only about 26,000 received one. When the kidneys stop working, people need to go on a dialysis machine to remove excess fluids and water from the blood. Once on dialysis, around half of patients die within five years. "The global burden of kidney disease is staggering," says Mike Curtis, CEO of eGenesis. "Cross species transplantation offers the most sustainable, scalable, and feasible approach for delivering new sources of organs." Continued here � � � � � � Caroline Ellison Says She and Sam Bankman-Fried Lied for Years- The New York Times    In her second day testifying at the FTX founder’s trial, Ms. Ellison said she had misled lenders and circulated phony financial documents at Mr. Bankman-Fried’s request. Caroline Ellison, a top adviser to the cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, testified on Wednesday that she had lied over and over at his request, misleading the public about his businesses and circulating “dishonest” financial documents to crypto lenders. By the time Mr. Bankman-Fried’s two companies — FTX, a digital currency exchange, and Alameda Research, a hedge fund — collapsed in November, the lies had become too much to bear, Ms. Ellison said, and the implosions were almost cathartic. Continued here � � � � � � The Latest on Resort Fees- The New York Times    Hotel ‘junk fees’ are becoming an increasingly annoying part of the travel experience. New proposals before Congress take aim at them. On a recent trip to the Caribbean island of Antigua, Melissa Middlestadt, a writer from the Toronto area, was charged a $12-a-night resort fee by the all-inclusive Jolly Beach. She was told it covered the use of nonmotorized water-sports equipment and Wi-Fi. “We challenged them to remove it, but they wouldn’t, which was a bummer because the Wi-Fi was so spotty that it didn’t even reach our room, and the kayak hut had such limited hours that we didn’t get to use those either,” said Ms. Middlestadt, 30, who was traveling with her husband on their honeymoon. “It was spending money to get nothing, which was upsetting and ruined the all-inclusive experience.” Continued here

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