LBS

FCC looks into reports of illegal mobile phone tracking

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently announced that it is investigating reports that websites may have enabled the location of mobile phone customers to be tracked. Reuters reported that the FCC referred news reports that broke earlier in the week to its enforcement bureau for investigation. Robert Xiao, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon, contends that the data from LocationSmart, a California technology firm, could have been used to track mobile customers of AT&T, Verizon Communications, Sprint and T-Mobile. He blamed it on a flaw in the software.

According to the report, the customers could be tracked as close as a few hundred yards of their locations without their knowledge. Those reports even prompted Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden to call on the FCC to investigate the allegations. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that charges had been filed against a former sheriff in Mississippi County, Missouri who used Securus Technologies to track the mobile phones of police officers without getting a court order. Reports pointed to LocationSmart as the source of the data.

LocationSmart spokeswoman Brenda Schafer said that the flaw “has been resolved and the demo has been disabled.” www.pymnts.com

NITI Aayog and IBM to develop precision agriculture over AI

NITI Aayog India and IBM signed a Statement of Intent (SoI) to develop a crop yield prediction model using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide real time advisory to farmers in Aspirational Districts. The partnership aims to work together towards use of technology to provide insights to farmers to improve crop productivity, soil yield, control agricultural inputs with the overarching goal of improving farmers’ incomes.

First phase of the project will focus on developing the model for 10 Aspirational Districts across the States of Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

The scope of this project is to introduce and make available climate-aware cognitive farming techniques and identifying systems of crop monitoring, early warning on pest/ disease outbreak based on advanced AI innovations. It also includes deployment of weather advisory, rich satellite and enhanced weather forecast information along with IT & mobile applications with a focus on improving the crop yield and cost savings through better farm management. www.ndtv.com

REFILE-Mapbox partners with Microsoft, Intel for car maps

Mapping startup Mapbox Inc said that it is teaming up with Microsoft Corp, Intel Corp and Softbank Group Corp’s ARM Holdings chip unit to deepen its push into providing maps for selfdriving cars. https://cn.reuters.com

Autonomous vehicle development by Quantum Storage Solutions

Quantum Corp has named AutonomouStuff LLC its primary partner for storage distribution in the automotive market. Quantum’s StorNext®-powered scaleout storage provides high-performance ingest of data into the data center when test vehicles return to the garage, thereby speeding time to result for sensor-generated in-vehicle data.

Uber will open $24 million flying taxi research center in Paris

Uber has announced that it will open its first research center outside North America in Paris, where it will spend $24 million over the next five years to develop its autonomous flying taxi technology. Back in 2016, Uber created its Elevate program to build allelectric, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft powered by distributed electric propulsion. As part of that initiative and other autonomous vehicle efforts, Uber has opened advanced technology offices in Pittsburgh, Toronto, and San Francisco. Uber also announced a new partnership with École polytechnique, a five-year deal to endow its first international academic and research chair of “Integrated Urban Mobility.”

In French academia, the term “chair” refers to program, rather than a single academic position. In this case, the new academic program will collaborate with Uber’s ATCP on subjects such as “artificial intelligence, aviation, and all-electric transport. https://venturebeat.com

Sony’s new IoT board features built-in GNSS receiver

Sony Corporation has developed two new products, the Spresence main and extension boards for internet of things (IoT) applications, equipped with a smart-sensing processor. The main board uses a multi- CPU structure equipped with Sony’s GNSS receiver (GPS+GLONASS) and high-res audio codec. A variety of systems for diverse applications – drones, smart speakers, sensing cameras and other IoT devices – can be built by combining the boards and developing the relevant applications.

SRI International to develop Artificial Intelligence System

SRI International has been selected by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a nextgeneration artificial intelligence (AI) system able to learn continuously and apply that learning to become better and more reliable at performing new tasks. The contract will be supported under DARPA’s Lifelong Learning Machines (L2M) Program.

AI systems today can repeatedly make the same mistakes. Even with retraining, today’s systems are prone to “catastrophic forgetting” when a new item disrupts previously learned knowledge

Biological memory transfer is a complex sequence of dynamic processes, with local and global synchronization patterns. These processes support memories with flexibility in expression for future thinking, foresight, planning, and creativity. As part of the L2M program, SRI researchers will develop AI algorithms based on biological mechanisms in memory consolidation and replay. www.sri.com