December 1, 2022 - San Francisco's Killer Robots Threaten the City's Most Vulnerable

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San Francisco's Killer Robots Threaten the City's Most Vulnerable Three years ago, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors made history by becoming the first city in the nation to ban use of facial recognition technology by local government. Last night, the board went in a different direction, giving police the right to kill a criminal suspect with a teleoperated robot if they believe there is an imminent threat of death to police or members of the public. Assistant police chief David Lazar said ahead of the vote that killer robots might be needed in scenarios involving mass shootings or suicide bombers, citing the Mandalay Bay shooting in Las Vegas in 2017 and the killing of five police officers in Dallas, Texas, in 2016. Dallas police ultimately used explosives strapped to a Remotec F5A bomb disposal robot—a model also possessed by the San Francisco Police Department—to kill that suspect. Continued here

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Mauna Loa, Earth’s Largest Active Volcano, Just Woke Up after 38 Years Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on Earth, erupted for the first time in nearly 40 years. Its eruptions tend to be shorter-lived than those of the other Big Island volcanoes, and its lava is more liquid and flows faster Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano—the largest active volcano on Earth—erupted on Sunday night for the first time since 1984, flooding the bowl-like caldera at its summit with a pool of glowing lava. Continued here

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Author Talks: Hospitality lessons from a Michelin-star restaurateur In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Vanessa Burke speaks with lifelong restaurateur Will Guidara about his new book Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More than They Expect (Optimism Press, October 2022). The former co-owner of Make it Nice, a hospitality group that included award-winning restaurants, Guidara took New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park from number 50 to number 1 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. During his 25-year career in hospitality, he has combined vulnerable leadership with distinctive service to create a MICHELIN Guide level experience for restaurant patrons and staff alike. An edited version of the conversation follows. When I was a kid, my dad always told me to keep a journal as I was growing through my career. There were a few reasons that he wanted me to do it. Continued here

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There must be a singularity at each black hole's center The more mass you place into a small volume of space, the stronger the gravitational pull gets. According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, there’s an astrophysical limit to how dense something can get and still remain a macroscopic, three-dimensional object. Exceed that critical value and you’re destined to become a black hole: a region of space where gravitation is so strong that you create an event horizon and a region from within which nothing can escape. No matter how fast you move, how quickly you accelerate, or even if you move at the ultimate speed limit of the Universe — the speed of light — you can’t get out. People have often wondered whether there might be a stable form of ultra-dense matter inside that event horizon that will hold up against gravitational collapse, and whether a singularity is truly inevitable. It’s a reasonable thing to wonder, as we simply cannot access the region interior to the event horizon; we cannot know the answer directly. Continued here

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China’s livestream shopping craze hits a ceiling It’s well-known that Chinese internet giants, unlike their American counterparts, don’t often stay in their own lane. Whether born of paranoia or sound business strategy, over the years, we’ve watched Alibaba’s attempts to enter digital entertainment and social media, Tencent’s efforts in e-commerce, and Meituan’s forays into ride-hailing.  TikTok and Douyin’s parent company ByteDance, of course, is no exception. In fact, it’s probably the most sprawling of the lot, having made high-profile investments that span gaming, education, e-commerce, health care, and more. But, in the last two years, e-commerce has been its primary focus — especially selling goods through live shopping. The company is even attempting to export its e-commerce success by rolling out TikTok Shop abroad, including the all-important livestream feature.  Continued here

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All the Actually Important Stuff Neuralink Just Announced While Elon Musk has been busy taking over Twitter, his brain-computer interface company Neuralink has been working on refining its technology, which is aimed at creating implants that allow a direct line of communication between the human brain and computers. Called brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs for short, these systems use tiny electrodes placed in the brain to “read” signals from nearby neurons. Software then decodes these signals into commands or actions, such as moving a cursor or a robotic arm. In 2019, Musk claimed his company’s device would eventually allow people to achieve a “symbiosis with artificial intelligence.”  Continued here

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What P&C insurers can do as claims inflation pressures results in Europe The property and casualty (P&C) claims landscape is becoming increasingly challenging due to unprecedented claims inflation. There are many underlying causes—among them, the COVID-19 pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine, and global supply chain disruptions. Claims executives have already been dealing with steadily increasing costs over the past few years. Results are being threatened by growing inflationary pressures and the already razor-thin margins in many markets that further exacerbate the problem (Exhibit 1). In fact, the entire market is struggling to cope with these challenges, as a competitive advantage is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and customers are becoming more demanding. A postpandemic rebound in claims frequency and significant increases in average indemnity per claim in motor and property across Europe pose additional problems for the P&C industry. But following a robust action plan can help insurers not only survive this challenging inflationary environment but also thrive and pull out ahead of their competitors. Insurers have always had to persevere through extreme inflation in their market—the most recent example is the steep increase in indemnity for escape of water claims in the UK market (Exhibit 2). In this situation, top-performing players managed to tightly control inflation and achieve substantially lower indemnity. Continued here

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‘Mind Control’ Parasite Makes Wolves Effective Pack Leaders The parasite Toxoplasma gondii can change the behavior of infected wolves in ways that make them more likely to be pack leaders Wolves infected with a common parasite are more likely than uninfected animals to lead a pack, according to an analysis of more than 200 North American wolves. Infected animals are also more likely to leave their home packs and strike out on their own. Continued here

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Asia's healthcare future revolves around patient-centric ecosystems Asia’s healthcare systems are on the brink of necessary change, driven by digitalization, consumer expectations, and fragile existing infrastructures. In this episode, Axel Baur, former senior partner from McKinsey, speaks with three McKinsey colleagues about the emerging digital healthcare ecosystems that are emerging in Asia to address these challenges. He chats to Senthu Arumugam, partner from the Kuala Lumpur’s office; Mengwei Xin, partner from the Shanghai office; and Hann Yew, partner from the Boston office. Oliver Tonby: Hello, I am Oliver Tonby. Welcome to the Future of Asia Podcast series. The Asian century has begun. Asia is the world’s largest regional economy, at the center of the technology revolution and consumption growth, hosting the consumers of the future. It's at the center of climate risk and the solutions devised to mitigate it. As our economies evolve, Asia has the potential to fuel and shape the next normal. In each episode of the podcast, we feature conversations with leaders from across the region to discuss what Asia's rise means for businesses everywhere. Continued here

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Google Moves to Block Invasive Spanish Spyware Framework The commercial spyware industry has increasingly come under fire for selling powerful surveillance tools to anyone who can pay, from governments to criminals around the world. Across the European Union, details of how spyware has been used to target activists, opposition leaders, lawyers, and journalists in multiple countries have recently touched off scandals and calls for reform. Today, Google's Threat Analysis Group announced action to block one such hacking tool that targeted desktop computers and was seemingly developed by a Spanish firm. The exploitation framework, dubbed Heliconia, came to Google's attention after a series of anonymous submissions to the Chrome bug reporting program. The disclosures pointed to exploitable vulnerabilities in Chrome, Windows Defender, and Firefox that could be abused to deploy spyware on target devices, including Windows and Linux computers. The submission included source code from the Heliconia hacking framework and called the vulnerabilities Heliconia Noise, Heliconia Soft, and Files. Google says the evidence points to the Barcelona-based tech firm Variston IT as the developer of the hacking framework. Continued here

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Why joy is a state of mind With infectious energy, singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo ties together the threads of her legendary career as a creative force and global activist. In conversation with journalist Femi Oke, she discusses how joy powers her music (and sings an incredible impromptu song), details her work spreading educational opportunities to women and girls across Africa and shares her belief that everybody has the power to tap into their potential. Continued here

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Forward Thinking on the meeting point of science and humanity with Jayshree Seth In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’sForward Thinking podcast, co-host Michael Chui talks with Jayshree Seth, a corporate scientist and the chief science advocate at the 3M company. She covers topics including: An edited transcript of this episode follows. Subscribe to the series on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Spotify,Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Continued here

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San Francisco allows police to use robots to remotely kill suspects The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has voted to allow the San Francisco Police Department to use lethal robots against suspects, ushering the sci-fi dystopia trope into reality. As the AP reports, the robots would be remote-controlled—not autonomous—and would use explosives to kill or incapacitate suspects when lives are at stake. Continued here

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Why China Is Still Stuck in a Zero-Covid Nightmare After protesters in China took to the streets in defiance of the nation’s zero-Covid policy, officials responded this week by affirming their strategy but promising tweaks to “reduce inconvenience” to the public. But that’s likely not enough to placate people who have endured measures that extend beyond inconvenience and include harsh lockdowns, food shortages, and economic hardship. Now, as China finds itself caught in the tangles of its once-praised policy, there’s no clear road back to normal. Zero-Covid is a point of national pride, and it has saved lives. According to the World Health Organization, China has recorded just over 30,000 deaths during the pandemic, whereas more than 1 million people have died in the US.  Continued here

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Tardrigrades, an Unlikely Sleeping Beauty Researchers put this ancient critter through a subzero gauntlet to learn more about what happens to their internal clock while surviving the extreme. Papp: Imagine a little critter that isn’t quite an insect or an animal. It’s about one millimeter in length, shaped like a gummy bear with eight legs and covered in tough, almost crunchy-looking scales. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the tardigrade! Continued here

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Cloud adoption on the rise in Asia: Talent is key to success In this episode of the Future of Asia Podcast series, senior partner and leader Anand Swaminathan puts these questions and more to three experts on the subject. He talks to Garrett Ilg, president of Oracle in Japan and Asia Pacific; Paul Macpherson, chief information officer of Consumer, Private, and Business Banking at Standard Chartered Bank; and Brant Carson, a partner in McKinsey’s Sydney office and leader of McKinsey’s technology and cloud practices across Asia. An edited version of their conversation follows. For more conversations on the Future of Asia, subscribe to our podcast. Oliver Tonby: Hello. I am Oliver Tonby, chairman of McKinsey in Asia. Welcome to the Future of Asia Podcast series. The Asian century has begun. Asia is the world’s largest regional economy. It’s at the center of the technology revolution; it’s at the center of consumption growth, and the consumers of the future. It’s at the center of climate risk and what we need to do to mitigate. As our economies evolve further, Asia has the potential to fuel and shape the next normal. In each episode, we are going to feature conversations with leaders from across the region to discuss what Asia’s rise means for businesses everywhere. Continued here

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Hundreds of prehistoric paintings have been found in caves with barely enough oxygen to breathe This article was first published on Big Think in April 2021. It was updated in November 2022. Artists of all types have been known to ingest a — shall we say — creative lubricant or two. One of the paradoxical things about art, even for people who love making it — maybe especially for those people — is that it’s sometimes hard to get started, despite the fact that it’s even harder to stop. Continued here

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Why you feel anxious socializing (and what to do about it) In crowds, at parties, meetings, get-togethers with friends, everyday interactions: social anxiety can show up as an unwelcome guest at any time. But why? Psychologist Fallon Goodman digs into the source of social anxiety, setting the record straight about this common condition with practical solutions to help you feel the most authentically "you" while out and about. Continued here

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Drop What You're Doing and Update iOS, Android, and Windows November saw the release of patches from the likes of Apple’s iOS, Google Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Windows to fix multiple security vulnerabilities. Some of these issues are pretty severe, and several have already been exploited by attackers.  Apple has released iOS and iPadOS 16.1.1, which the iPhone maker recommends all users apply. The patch fixes two security vulnerabilities—and given the speed of the release, you can assume they are pretty serious.  Continued here

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New device can make hydrogen when dunked in salt water With renewable energy becoming cheaper, there's a growing impetus to find ways of economically storing it. Batteries can handle short-term fluxes in production but may not be able to handle longer-term shortfalls or seasonal changes in power output. Hydrogen is one of several options being considered that has the potential to serve as a longer-term bridge between periods of high renewable productivity. Continued here

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Quantum jumps: How Niels Bohr's idea changed the world The word quantum is everywhere, and along with it the term quantum jumps. Last week we discussed Max Planck’s pioneering idea that atoms might emit and absorb energy in discrete quantities, always multiples of the same amount. These small chunks of radiation got the name quantum.  This week we move forward to another key idea in the quantum revolution: Niels Bohr’s 1913 model of the atom, which gave us quantum jumps. If Planck’s idea took courage and a great deal of imagination, Bohr’s was a massive feat of bravado. Somehow Bohr put a bunch of new ideas into a bag, mixed them with old concepts from classical physics, and came up with the notion of quantized orbits in atoms. That the model held is nothing short of amazing. Bohr saw what no one could see at the time: that atoms are nothing like people had thought for at least 2,000 years. In fact, they are like nothing anyone could have imagined at all. Except Bohr, I suppose. Continued here

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Interpersonal skills training: 5 lessons for building people skills There are plenty of reasons why interpersonal skills training should be a top priority for learning and development, but one of the biggest is what’s at stake without it. Interpersonal skills are essential to customer service performance and sales outcomes, which directly impact an organization’s bottom line.   A lack of interpersonal skills in the workforce can negatively impact corporate culture, morale, and collaboration. This results in less engaged employees, which can lead to higher turnover. Continued here

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Jaguar’s Formula E team is a good example of how racing improves road EVs LONDON—On Wednesday, Jaguar Racing became the latest Formula E team to unveil its race car for the coming season. The sport has radical new technical rules for its third-generation race car, which is smaller, lighter, more powerful, and more efficient. This will be the British automaker's sixth season competing in the series, and its participation is for more than just marketing; Jaguar Land Rover's electrified road cars have benefited in tangible ways as a result, according to the team's technical manager Phil Charles. Continued here

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How to Make the Most of In-Person Conferences “I’ve lost my social skills!” I texted to a friend while en route to my first in-person conference in four years. The workshop itself wasn’t new—I’d been to the same one every other year for the past decade. But between the last live one in 2018, the virtual one in 2020, and this one in 2022, I had learned to appreciate the convenience of online learning. No flights. No dress code. No interacting with others—the perfect environment for an introvert like me.  But 10 months after registering, I left my sweatpants and slippers at home and headed to the airport, eager to connect with old and new friends.  Continued here

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How Chinese influencers are dodging YouTube’s anti-propaganda rules The YouTube channel “Annie Guli” is run by Guli Abdushukur, a young woman in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in western China. Her videos seem to cater to a global audience hungry for authentic snapshots of China’s rural life, and the sweeping beauty of its far-flung border regions. A video of Abdushukur making a mouthwatering dish of hand-rolled noodles has been viewed more than 600,000 times. The channel claims to show a viewer the “real Xinjiang” through its videos. “The hometown of this pretty Xinjiang girl, with beautiful snowcapped mountains in the distance and delicious food — would you like to visit?” asks the title of one of the videos. In a region commonly shown as the subject of strict surveillance, cultural erasure, and human rights violations, this is not the case, Abdushukur appears to say; rather, it’s a land of rustic family traditions, clear blue skies, piles of freshly picked Xinjiang cotton.  Continued here

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Google customers win class-action status in lawsuit over app store prices Next summer, courts will decide whether Google is guilty of “misleading” millions of Google Play users by warning them against using any other app stores or services to download apps. Continued here

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Painting thought to be merely a Rembrandt copy belongs to the master himself In 1921, the Dutch art historian Abraham Bredius bought a small, unfinished oil sketch on wooden panel depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The purchase, it seems, largely had been an impulsive one. Bredius was struck by the painting’s innate beauty, which – upon closer inspection – led him to believe its creator had been none other than the master artist Rembrandt van Rijn. Initially, Bredius’ colleagues agreed. The sketch, now called The Raising of the Cross, possesses qualities indicative of Rembrandt’s handiwork. The composition is dynamic, with lots of figures moving around in a disorganized yet somehow harmonious manner. The scene was rendered in the middle of the action, with cross and Christ being raised up, seconds away from being bathed in divine light. It’s an unorthodox, humanizing depiction of a classic scene, the kind of approach that Rembrandt was famous for. Continued here

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Why is half the Universe missing? Scientists know an astonishing number of exotic things. For instance, we know that the Universe began nearly 14 billion years ago in a cataclysmic event called the Big Bang.  The first experimental evidence that the Big Bang happened was reported in 1929, and the case has only strengthened in the last century. There is no credible doubt that it happened. We also know that, in addition to the ordinary form of matter that makes up you and me, there exists an exotic form, called antimatter, that has the property that when it touches ordinary matter, the two annihilate each other in a staggeringly large flash of energy. Indeed, a gram of antimatter, when brought into contact with a gram of matter, would release about the same amount of energy as the 1945 atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima. Continued here

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EU threatens Musk with Twitter ban as firm defends new approach to moderation A European regulator today reportedly threatened Elon Musk with a continent-wide ban on Twitter if the company fails to enforce content moderation rules required by the Digital Services Act. Also today, Twitter claimed it hasn't changed any policies—even though it stopped enforcing rules against COVID misinformation. Continued here

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On December 7 the Moon Will Photobomb Mars Much of North America can witness a delightful astronomical event on the evening of December 7 as the moon blocks out Mars On the evening of December 7, 2022, people in a large fraction of the U.S. will be able to see a rare and wonderful astronomical event: the moon will pass directly in front of Mars, blocking it from view. Continued here

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iOS 16.1.2 has arrived, and it’s focused on the crash detection feature Apple released a minor software update for iPhones today. Unlike many of its other iOS updates, the new iOS 16.1.2 was not released in tandem with updates to Apple's other operating systems like macOS or watchOS. Continued here

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5 Billion People Will Face Water Shortages by 2050, U.N. Says The World Meteorological Organization warns that climate-related shortages in water resources could affect two thirds of the world’s population by midcentury and will be felt unevenly Five billion people, or around two-thirds of the world’s population, will face at least one month of water shortages by 2050, according to the first in a series of United Nations reports on how climate change is affecting the world’s water resources. Continued here

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Is Our Universe a Hologram? Physicists Debate Famous Idea on Its 25th Anniversary The Ads/CFT duality conjecture suggests our universe is a hologram, enabling significant discoveries in the 25 years since it was first proposed Twenty-five years ago this month, a conjecture shook the world of theoretical physics. It had the aura of revelation. “At first, we had a magical statement ... almost out of nowhere,” says Mark Van Raamsdonk, a theoretical physicist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. The idea, put forth by Juan Maldacena of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., hinted at something profound: that our universe could be a hologram. Much like a 3-D hologram emerges from the information encoded on a 2-D surface, our universe’s 4-D spacetime could be a holographic projection of a lower-dimensional reality. Continued here

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Gallium: The liquid metal that could transform soft electronics Every time you sit down with your phone in your back pocket, you’re reminded of a fundamental truth: Human bodies are soft and flexible. Electronics aren’t. But soon there may be devices that can stretch, bend and even repair themselves when they’re damaged. By harnessing the unusual properties of a liquid metal called gallium, materials scientists aim to create a new generation of flexible devices for virtual reality interfaces, medical monitors, motion-sensing devices and more. Continued here

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The danger and devotion of fighting for women in Afghanistan The women of Afghanistan are being persecuted under Taliban rule, but they're not standing down. Filmmaker Tamana Ayazi chronicles the harrowing reality of one women's rights advocate -- Zarifa Ghafari, Afghanistan's youngest female mayor -- in her documentary "In Her Hands." In conversation with human rights lawyer Kat Craig, Ayazi discusses the making of her film, her experience interviewing the Taliban leaders she opposes and her hopes for the future of her beloved country. Continued here