Monthly Archives: June 2017

The Hindu

Body-powered flexible technology The Hindu North Carolina State University researchers in the U.S. have invented a flexible body-heat powered energy harvester which can be used to make wearable technology that is powered by body heat alone. Earlier, there did exist energy harvesters that could ... and more »

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Body-powered flexible technology - The Hindu

Dedra Sykes had a mother's intuition about her daughter, who disappeared almost two months ago.

She said she would see the teen again. She said technology would lead them to 14-year-old Jennifer Lee Willis. She predicted that the family would locate the girl before police.

Her mother wit proved accurate this week, when Jennifer was found by the family and taken to a hospital. Now they're working to help her recover from the weeks-long ordeal.

"We shouldn't have to find our own child," Sykes said.

The teen first vanished in April after she was punished for talking to strangers in an online chat room. Her parents found her the next day in their Hiram Clarke neighborhood on Houston's south side.

She was gone again on May 5, and the Houston Police Department classified her as a runaway.

Thanks to cloud photo storage, however, the family maintained hope that Jennifer was alive.

Photos and video the girl uploaded on her phone kept showing up on a tablet through a joint family account over the last seven weeks.

Her parents could see that she looked thinner, was wearing makeup and an adult hairstyle, with a long weave or wig and blonde highlights. Some of the videos suggested the teen, who has behavioral and mental health diagnoses, might have been exploited by adults.

Some of the uploaded content include geomapping that helped Jennifer's parents stay on her trail.

"They would only come up sometimes and when we would get to the locations, we would just miss her," Sykes said.

The latest photo popped up around 1 p.m. Thursday.

"She posted a picture and we pulled up the location," Sykes said.

They rushed to a budget motel off Beltway 8 between Westheimer and Richmond.

"There was a guy outside and we showed him her picture and he said she just left and went to the store," Sykes said. "She was right down the street."

Cautious, they hid in their vehicle to avoid tipping off their daughter.

Jennifer's father, Lee Allen Willis, a boxer-turned-personal trainer, speedwalked the less than half a mile from the motel to the convenience store in a Chevron gas station. He saw Jennifer at the Burger King inside, and they scuffled.

Her mother showed up moments later and called 911.

"The people in the store, they don't know what's happening," Sykes said. "He goes to try to help her and these people are trying to help Jennifer get away. It's like a little physical brawl. Then he showed them paperwork. Now we're in a dangerous situation because whoever has her, we don't know how bad they want to keep her. She was not alone. She was with some other girls."

As they waited for paramedics and police, Sykes said several people approached and threatened her.

"They asked me if that was her dad or a police informant," she said.

When a Houston police officer arrived, Sykes said, the officer focused on Jennifer and did not immediately interview the people at the motel room or others who made threats.

The officer handcuffed Jennifer and put her in the back of the police car for safekeeping before the trip to a hospital.

Sykes said she has lost faith in HPD and the people in charge of finding runaways or missing minors like Jennifer. The family got little assistance in tracking the digital fingerprints that could have led them to the teen sooner, she said.

HPD spokesman John Cannon, however, said the missing persons unit had been in frequent contact with Sykes and Willis, and that police followed up on the teen's posted videos and photos.

A lead missing persons investigator worked the case by interviewing Jennifer's school friend, also a neighbor, who said she "had been with her as recently as three weeks ago," but denied knowledge of the missing teen's whereabouts, Cannon said Friday.

Police said earlier this month they believed the teen may have been sneaking into her home to shower and eat when her parents and siblings were away.

Two-thirds of the 566 lost and missing people reported to HPD in April were children, according to a Chronicle review of missing persons reports. The month's cases included 157 missing juveniles, 231 runaway minors and 178 missing adults.

Most are located in short order, though Houston police don't maintain an active list of individual cases. A few never return home, lost to the streets or the morgue.

In Jennifer's case, her parents were the sleuths who solved the case by finding their daughter alive.

"We were giving them the leads," Sykes said. "They're still failing us. They need to be interrogating and finding out: Who are these people? There might be other young ladies in trouble over there."

Sykes is convinced her daughter was lured away from home, but is focused on getting her stabilized on medications she's gone without for weeks.

"This is a business. These little girls are being targeted," she said. "She was gone almost two months. She was in a motel room. You see all these grown men and grown women with her. She's only 14 years old."

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Technology helps parents locate missing daughter - Chron.com

Rochester technology team looks for the next killer app Bradenton Herald A small Rochester technology team thinks the hot gee-whiz technology of augmented and virtual reality has the potential for lot more than just fun and games. Virtual reality refers to an immersive technology that usually uses a headset to create the ... and more »

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Rochester technology team looks for the next killer app - Bradenton Herald

More broadly, he has developed an intelligence network in the villages around the park, and pays for information leading to a conviction. He has forged alliances with the many private conservancies that border Kruger, effectively pushing its borders outwards. He has helped persuade South Africas government to impose substantially tougher penalties for poaching, and to open a permanent court in Krugers Skukuza headquarters whose judges understand whats at stake.

In neighbouring Mozambique, poaching was not even treated as a crime until 2014, but under international pressure its government has introduced stiff penalties, which are being enforced with varying degrees of rigour.

Joostes subordinates speak of him with admiration. He took us from having no direction and approach to the onslaught we were trying to deal with and guided our whole anti-poaching effort into a solid spear, Charles Thompson, the helicopter pilot, declared as we swept over Krugers seemingly infinite bush. Everyone was basically a nature lover and had never been in the military and he taught us how to fight in a guerrilla war.

His efforts have certainly slowed the carnage. Kruger lost a record 827 rhinos in 2014, 826 in 2015, and 662 last year, and the downward trend continues. The number of poachers arrested inside Kruger has risen from 123 in 2013 to 281 last year.

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Can modern technology save rhinos from poachers? - Telegraph.co.uk

ST. LOUIS As more St. Louis neighborhoods seek to install surveillance cameras for the sake of public safety and crime prevention, some residents are concerned about protecting privacy.

Members of Privacy Watch STL and the ACLU are supporting a city proposal sponsored by Alderman Terry Kennedy, 18th Ward, that would require city entities to publicly present plans to the Board of Alderman outlining the acquisition, use and funding of surveillance technology.

Privacy Watch began working with the ACLU last year to address the use of street cameras .

Under Board Bill 66 introduced June 16, street cameras, body cameras, automatic license plate readers and biometric surveillance technology, including facial and voice recognition programs, would receive public scrutiny before board approval.

Technologies that have been used in St. Louis in the past include a cellphone tracking device, license plate readers, and a gunshot tracker called ShotSpotter.

Kennedy said Friday his measure is intended to begin a conversation about surveillance equipment approval processes and uses. It would require entities such as the Police Department, Streets Department and even neighborhood associations to explain how long information would be saved and why a particular area was being monitored. Individual homeowners are not mentioned in the bill.

Agencies would have to present data to ensure profiling is not happening as well, he said, and prove that the usage of (surveillance) on those demographics are justified not based on perceived fear.

The proposal calls for entities that already use surveillance tools such as cameras to present such information to the board within 120 days after the measure is enacted. The proposal is co-sponsored by Alderman John Collins Muhammad, 21st Ward.

Police said in April that 36 security cameras would be installed in six south St. Louis wards beginning in May. Because of the retroactive component of Kennedys measure, those cameras could be reviewed by the board.

The Post-Dispatch reported in March that there are 500 cameras throughout the city connected to the Real Time Crime Center. Police credit the cameras in hundreds of arrests and charges and the recovery of dozens of illegal firearms and stolen vehicles.

Critics condemn the thousands of dollars spent on cameras in St. Louis communities. For example, in 2010, the 21st Ward installed about $600,000 worth of equipment. Although critics admit that cameras may reduce property crimes, they say the technology has little effect on reducing violent and drug crimes.

Allison Reilly, St. Louis Amnesty Internationals representative to the privacy group, said members not only want to educate the public but also stop the overextension of surveillance.

Proponents of Kennedys plan say they worry about government infringement on peoples privacy and civil rights and how data acquired by police departments and regional centers could aid the federal government.

St. Louis resident Alicia Hernandez said shes concerned about the issue because of the number of immigrants who could be targeted.

Hernandez said she filed an open records request to learn about cameras that leaders in her ward planned to install.

Im worried about Trumps initiatives, Hernandez said of U.S. President Donald Trumps actions against immigrants.

Hernandez and others say they worry that surveillance tools, not limited to cameras, disproportionately target communities of color, immigrant communities and marginalized religious groups.

Police spokeswoman Schron Jackson said Friday that cameras are deployed in high-crime areas or during major events at the direction of district commanders.

The department does not reveal exact locations of cameras for security reasons, though a map depicting city cameras shows many situated downtown and along the central corridor to the Central West End and Delmar Loop area.

At this time , there is no formal approval process for the placement of cameras, Jackson said.

The department said most cameras are owned by private groups, with some by the Streets Department.

After a series of shootings in the Shaw neighborhood, for example, the nonprofit Shaw Security Initiative raised more than $20,000 through GoFundMe for street cameras at four different corners. The Shaw Neighborhood Improvement Association contributed $11,000 of ward money to the project.

The first camera could be installed at Shaw and Klemm avenues by the end of June. The intersection has greatly concerned residents because of crimes near there, including the 2014 shooting of VonDerrit Myers Jr.

Two cameras to be installed at the corners of Shaw Avenue and 39th Street and Magnolia and Tower Grove avenues will be powered by solar energy with a battery backup system that could run the camera up to three days under heavy cloud cover, according to the security initiatives website.

A fourth camera, paid with ward funds, would be installed by the city at the corner of Magnolia and Grand Boulevard. There is already a camera at Shaw and Grand.

Each camera system costs $6,400. Additional bills include a $200 fee and a monthly bill of $179 for AT&T cellular service for three years, the Shaw Security Initiative reports.

The cameras, which will record continuously, will use a cellular connection to transmit information to the citys Real Time Crime Center. Security group co-leader Larry Weinles said the system would only be used to connect the crime center to the cameras and would not be used to intercept cellphone signals in the area.

Other options, such as fiber optic cables and a router, proved to be too expensive or not secure.

The crime center will be able to access real time and recorded video. Recorded information will be stored in the camera for 96 hours, the community security group reports.

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Surveillance technology could come under board scrutiny if city measure passes - STLtoday.com

Board members for the county-owned hospital have been exploring the possibility and are expected to make a decision next week, according to Blad.

If approved, Blad said officials believe the hospital would become the first critical access hospital in Minnesota to invest in the new technology.

Critical access is a designation given to certain rural hospitals by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

There is a "high price of admission" in terms of the investment needed to acquire the technology, according to Blad. He said the hospital has been discussing the possibility with a supplier and has been "able to get costs down significantly to where it is in the realm of reality.''

The hospital's general surgeon, Dr. Jared Slater, M.D., has experience with robotic-assisted technology while serving at the Mayo Clinic Health System in Rochester. His skills as a surgeon, and the hospital's modern surgical suites developed with the construction of the new hospital, are also very important in the hospital's ability to consider this technology, the CEO told the commissioners.

Blad said the new technology would benefit patients. The improved care made possible by the technology can result in shorter recovery times, he said.

The technology being eyed by the hospital is identical to that which Rice Memorial Hospital in Willmar recently adopted, he said. Rice began robotic-assisted surgery in 2015.

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RC Hospital considers robotic surgery technology - West Central Tribune

When Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings appeared at Recode's Code Conference in May, he talked about the high success rate of the company's shows and the need to be more aggressive and more experimental. "I'm always pushing the content team," he said. "We have to take more risk; you have to try more crazy things."

Longtime investors in the video-streaming pioneer know that the company runs experiments involving its subscribers fairly regularly. Several meaningful changes to the service have been the result of such experiments. Netflix's post-play feature, which begins playing the next episode in a series once you've finished the current one, was the result of just such an experiment. Allowing subscribers to download content for offline viewing was another. Its most recent experiment could revolutionize the streaming concept it created.

In its latest move, Netflix will roll out its groundbreaking branching technology, in a bid to make programs interactive. Only the newest smart TV's, iOS devices, Roku boxes, and game consoles will work with the technology for now. Using a remote, touchscreen, or controller, viewers will have the option during the story to determine the next move the characters make in the program. Each choice leads to more potential choices down the line, producing myriad ways for the same story to unfold.

Netflix announced this week the first in a series of interactive branching narrative programs, beginning with children's content. The animated programPuss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale launched on June 20, and Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile will make its debut on July 14. Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout will arrive next year.

Here's how Netflix sets the scene:

You sink into the sofa and fire up Netflix. You settle in to watch everyone's favorite swashbuckling feline, Puss in Boots. You chuckle as Puss in Boots finds himself in the story of Goldilocks with the Three Bears staring at him.

And then... you're asked to make a choice:

Should these bears be friends or foes?

Children will then decide how the story unfolds. In a blog, Carla Engelbrecht Fisher, the director of product innovation at Netflix, pointed out that children brought up with touchscreens are already engaging with them. "They're touching every screen," she says. "They think everything is interactive." This move, then, merely puts interactive television on equal footing with mobile apps and video games.

Filmmakers are excited by the concept of branching programs. Image source: Netflix.

Netflix enlisted the show's creators and conducted extensive research with kids and parents to ensure the best possible outcome, while using the overriding mantra "Wouldn't it be cool if... ?" Netflix approached DreamWorks Animation executive producer and writer Doug Langdale with the idea. "I didn't really know it was a possibility before," he stated. "As soon as it came up as something we could do, I desperately wanted to do it."

The programs took two years to develop, and the end result is 13 decision points in Puss in Book, resulting in a story that spans 18 to 39 minutes, depending on the choices made. The streaming giant is eager to learn how members engage with the experience, and to understand if they watch an episode multiple times, since each set of choices leads to a different adventure. If the initial trial with children's programs is successful, the trial will probably expand beyond animated kids' fare.

Netflix is known for taking chances on programs that wouldn't have otherwise seen the light of day, and that strategy is paying off. Netflix recently exceeded 100 million members, and it continues to look for ways to differentiate its content from competitors such asAmazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). In its most recent quarter, Netflix surpassed $2.5 billion in quarterly streaming revenue for the first time. The company will want to continue to develop innovative content if it wants to retain the streaming crown. Hastings wants the content team to push the boundaries, and this endeavor seems to fit the bill.

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Netflix Launches Groundbreaking Interactive Branching Technology - Madison.com

You can beat the gathering gloom in job market by equipping yourself with the latest tech skills. In a bleak employment scenario, evolving technology has opened up a vast space as businesses chase innovative solutions.

The new-age skill sets such as natural language processing are in high demand and promise market-beating rates.

Data from a website that matches freelancers with employers reveals US demand for software engineers who program computers to understand human speech grew faster than workers with any other skill. Voice-activated virtual assistants such as Apple's Siri and Amazon's Echo devices have been made possible by natural language processing.

According to a Bloomberg report on the Upwork data, freelancers who know natural language processing earned an average hourly rate of $123 per hour, and the total amount that they billed increased by 2,300 per cent last quarter from a year earlier. "The nascent boom in these jobs also foreshadows the employment that advances in artificial intelligence could create, even while they replace other human tasks," says the Bloomberg report.

While natural language processing topped Upwork's list of the 20 fastest-growing skills, Swift, a programming language used to build apps for Apple devices, ranked second, followed by Tableau, a system to create data visualisations.

Amazon Marketplace Web Services, Stripe, Instagram marketing, MySQL programming, Unbounce, social media management and Angular JS were other top skills in the Upwork list.

Evolving technology works both way-if it creates demand for new skills, it also renders even some recent tech skills obsolete. "The demand for workers who know how to analyze Twitter data plunged 51% last quarter from a year earlier, reflecting the social media service's struggle to grow its user base," says the Bloomberg report.

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These 20 technology skills can help you beat IT job market blues - Economic Times

DvSnf7 dsRNA is an unusual insecticide. You dont spray it on crops. Instead, you encode instructions for manufacturing it in the DNA of the crop itself. If a pesky western corn rootworm comes munching, the plants self-made DvSnf7 dsRNA disrupts a critical rootworm gene and kills the pest.

This last step is called RNA interference, or RNAi, and the Environmental Protection Agency last week approved the first insecticide relying on it. Just a few years ago, RNAi was the hot, new biotechnology generating both hype and controversy. But its first approval as an insecticide has been surprisingly low-key. The EPAs decision attracted little attention from the press or even from environmental groups that reliably come out against new genetically modified crops.

The first product DvSnf7 dsRNA will show up in is SmartStax Pro, a line of genetically modified corn seeds made in collaboration between two agricultural giants, Monsanto and Dow. The RNAi part comes from Monsanto, which has its eye on a number of RNAi applications. Monsanto expects corn seed with RNAi to be on the market by the end of this decade.

For some corn farmers, this cant come soon enough. The western corn rootworm is known as the billion dollar pest because of the damage it wreaks on cornfields. And it keeps becoming resistant to the toxins farmers throw against it. First it was spray-on pesticides; then it was corn genetically modified to make the Bt toxin, a technology also commercialized by Monsanto. When I go out and I talk to farmers, says Joseph Spencer, an entomologist at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, you talk about Bt resistance and invariably the moment will come where they say, Well have the RNAi soon and thatll take care it. To cover all the bases, SmartStax Pro will contain both Bt and DvSnf7 dsRNA.

RNAi is useful because it can be highly specific: Its supposed to, in theory, turn off one specific gene in one specific species while leaving others unharmed. Plants and animals naturally use this process to silence their own genes. And scientists have previously harnessed RNAi to create genetically modified crops, like apples and potatoes that dont brown because their browning gene is silenced. With Monsanto and Dows genetically modified corn, however, the DvSnf7 dsRNA is actually silencing a gene in another living organism, the western corn rootworm. Rather than modifying itself, it modifies its environment.

The Center for Food Safety, along with other groups, vocally opposed the apples and potatoes modified through RNAi. Bill Freese, CFSs science policy analyst, admits they were caught a bit off guard by the EPAs decision with RNAi in corn. The EPA only allowed for 15 days of public comment, and the agency did not post its proposed decision in the Federal Register. Its not the first time the EPA has approved pesticides quietly like this, but Freese argues the unprecedented use of RNAi as insecticide should have merited more public scrutiny.

The EPA was the last of three agenciesalong with the FDA and USDAthat signed off on the safety of DvSnf7 dsRNA. Critics often point to a 2011 paper to question the safety of tinkering with RNAi. In that study, Chinese scientists found naturally occurring RNA molecules from rice circulating in the bloodstream of people eating it. That paper has gotten a lot of criticism, and scientists have had trouble replicating its findings.

The real problem, says Freese, goes beyond RNAi itself. Theres faddish interest in the latest technology, says Freeze. It often neglects the basic issues of the unhealthy practices used in planting corn. Rotating crops, for example, rather than planting corn multiple years in a row in the same field can cut down on the western corn rootworm problem.

Spencer, the entomologist in Illinois, also stresses the importance of rotating crops and planting refuges of non-genetically modified corn. Hes seen what happened to Bt, when overplanting of Bt corn led to resistance.With RNAi, farmers get a new tool and a fresh start. We need to treat these things carefully because we really cant just afford to throw them away, he says. (Spencer has received funding from Monsanto for his research into western corn rootworms.)

CRISPR Could Usher In a New Era of Delicious GMO Foods

Western corn rootworm is just the beginning of Monsantos ambitions for RNAi. Robb Fraley, the companys chief technology office, ticked off the other RNAi products in the pipeline: a soybean that makes oil containing omega-3 and an insecticide that kills mites harming honeybees. I would put RNA in the suite of really advanced, next-generation technologies that are adding to the excitement from a research perspective, he says.

In recent years, CRISPR has displaced RNAi as the newest darling of genetic engineering. (Monsanto has licensed CRISPR, too.) Getting technology from the lab into the field takes time. SmartStax Pro, when it is on the market in a few years, will finally be RNAi pest-control technologys entry into the real world, and it could just be the beginning.

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The EPA Quietly Approved Monsanto's New Genetic-Engineering Technology - The Atlantic