Day: January 26, 2018

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‘This Is Not Normal’: Nutella Riots Hit France After Stores Slash Prices

A promotional sale on Nutella was more successful than planned: Customers came to blows trying to get jars of the sweet spread after a grocery chain cut prices by 70 percent.

Eric Gaillard/Reuters


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Eric Gaillard/Reuters

A promotional sale on Nutella was more successful than planned: Customers came to blows trying to get jars of the sweet spread after a grocery chain cut prices by 70 percent.

Eric Gaillard/Reuters

Hundreds of French citizens lost their savoir faire on Thursday, driven to desperation by a grocery chain’s sudden 70 percent price drop for a jar of Nutella. Stories of “Nutella riots” began to spread; videos showed crowds of people shoving and yelling in supermarkets, trying to reach the jars.

One video showed a throng of people rushing to collect as many jars of Nutella as they could carry. The video was titled “Emeute” — a term for a mutiny or rebellion. In the footage, a woman is repeatedly heard saying that the situation “is not normal,” as people pushed their way to a stack of Nutella jars, leaving behind only crumpled cardboard cartons.

The sweet spread, a blend of chocolate and hazelnut, set off bitter feelings after Intermarché slashed the price for a jar of Nutella from 4.50 euros to 1.41 euros — from $5.60 to around $1.75.

The result of the sale, says the regional daily Le Progres in Loire: “riot scenes everywhere.”

In at least three cases, police were called after customers came to blows in the frenzy for Nutella, according to Le Parisien. The newspaper adds that Intermarché expressed surprise at the chaos, and regret over the effects on its customers.

“At 8:15, there was already a waiting line of 200 people in front of the store, an employee at one Intermarché location tells Franceinfo.

When the store opened, that employee said, customers ran to snag their Nutella: “After a few minutes, the director had to intervene. He distributed one pot per person, next to a security guard. The palette was empty after 10 minutes.”

Similar rationing was reported at other stores, and grocery employees relayed accounts of scratches and other wounds to Franceinfo. Describing customers running and fighting, a manager of a store in Metz said, “People were aggressive. They were trying to tear the pots out and menacing us.”

Radio France International cited the AFP in reporting an employee in the northeastern town of Forbach saying, “People just rushed in, shoving everyone, breaking things. It was like an orgy.”

The doorbuster-style frenzy underlined the extremes of France’s culinary world. In the same week that some people scrabbled for Nutella, more than 1,500 chefs gathered in Lyon for the funeral of Paul Bocuse, the brilliant and influential chef who died last Saturday at 91.

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10 monkeys in gas chamber experienced VW diesel cheating firsthand

After years of the Volkswagen dieselgate scandal, The New York Times found out that ten monkeys were trapped in an airtight room in a laboratory and forced to breathe diesel fumes. It was part of a campaign by German automakers to hire scientists to do studies that might exonerate diesel as being environmentally safe. The American scientists who were conducting the test were not aware that the diesel-powered Beetle being used was equipped with one of VW’s infamous defeat devices, which allowed them to cheat on emissions tests.

Details of the experiment undertaken in Albuquerque in 2014 were spelled out in a lawsuit against Volkswagen in the United States, the Times reports. The ten cynomolgus macaque monkies, a type used extensively in medical experiments, were shown cartoons. Scientists piped in exhaust from the Beetle, which ran on a treadmill in a separate room. The study did not provide a clear finding.

Volkswagen in 2015 acknowledged installing the secret software on as many as 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide. The so-called dieselgate scandal has cost the German automaker as much as $30 billion, according to Reuters, and led to charges in the U.S. against eight current and former VW executives. The company has rebounded to post record-high global sales and is turning its focus to electric vehicles.

The European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector, which was funded by VW, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz commissioned the monkey experiment. It was created in 2007 as Volkswagen was preparing to market diesel technology in the United States, which has tougher restrictions on diesel than Europe, but shut down last year over controversy about its work.

The group received all of its funding for the monkey tests in Albuquerque from VW, Daimler and BMW, all of which defended the organization’s work. “All of the research work commissioned with the EUGT was accompanied and reviewed by a research advisory committee consisting of scientists from renowned universities and research institutes,” Daimler said in a statement.

Daimler and BMW said they were unaware that the Volkswagen used in the monkey tests was manipulated to produce favorable data. Volkswagen told the Times the researchers had never managed to publish a complete study.

Read the full story here.

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Ford Files Patent for Autonomous Robocop Car That Learns How to Hide From Drivers

The US Patent Office recently published a patent by Ford for an autonomous police vehicle that could be programmed with “machine learning tools (e.g., deep neural networks) to find good hiding spots to catch violators of traffic laws.” First spotted by Motor 1, the patent—which represents more of a moonshot project than a pending invention—would nonetheless really round out the most dystopian visions of our future.

Exceeding the capabilities of current policing robots by security companies like Knightscope, the autonomous fleet would have immense surveillance capabilities. The patent filed in 2016 references cameras, road sensors, license plate readers, touch sensitive panels, speakers, LIDAR, ultrasound sensors and microphones, satellite connectivity, and radar detectors to record the speed of other vehicles (ominously referred to as a “laser gun”).

Further, the patent references machine learning and neural networks throughout. AI is both rapidly altering law enforcement and prompting alarms from privacy advocates concerned about a dawning surveillance state. Ford imagines the robocar would connect to “a locally stored record of drivers” or even larger government databases to verify drivers’ licenses. With these powerful recording and storage opportunities, even fleeting interactions with the car could potentially land the public in a database somewhere.

The filing includes these diagrams of how the car might operate:

This first diagram is an overview of the many things the robocar could do in varying scenarios. You’ll note the tree at 180. According to the patent, the robocar “may, based on machine learning through deep neural network(s), find a spot behind an object 180 (shown as a tree in FIG. 1) and park at that spot behind object 180 so as to be inconspicuous.” Speed traps like this are an old police trick, but training AI to hide from humans is all kinds of disturbing.

Ford imagines the vehicles could be attached to a local network of surveillance cameras that will send signals to robocars when they record traffic violations. As shown in the patent image, the cams could be attached to stoplights and stop signs themselves, triggering as soon as a driver, say, runs a red light or changes lanes without signaling. A network of cameras designed to catch speeders, yet the AI still needs to hide? Weird.

Police already use artificial intelligence to send squad cars to places they expect more crime, a practice called called “hot spot policing.” It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine departments sending robocars to areas where there are more traffic violations, but there’s a serious risk for bias here. After the Ferguson, Missouri riots in 2015, a DOJ report found that local police over-patrolled black neighborhoods and stopped black drivers significantly more often that white drivers. If autonomous police vehicles relied on traffic violations recorded by area, how do we know they wouldn’t repeat these biases?

The second diagram in the patent shows a hypothetical situation where the robocar has spotted someone speeding. The car would use “wireless communication” to contact the driver of the speeding vehicle and pull them over. From there, the robocar would establish the identity of the driver. The patent isn’t clear on how exactly this would work, only saying that valid responses from the pedestrian car may include “an image of a driver’s license of a human driver of the first vehicle… verifying the authenticity of the driver’s license.”

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Ford’s patent is that it states its robocar would be used for “routine police tasks.” Of course, there’s nothing routine about being hunted by an robot police car that learns to hide in foliage like a Green Beret. Right now, officers are using drones to keep tabs on drivers, but this represents the ultimate end of smart policing: a driverless surveillance bot that can’t be harmed, reasoned with, or, stopped.

[The Drive via Motor 1]

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Watch This Artist Reveal His Invisible Calligraphy Using a Few Drops of Ink

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We’ve featured Seb Lester’s remarkable calligraphy talents before, but in this video, instead of hand-lettering iconic corporate logos, he’s seemingly performing calligraphic magic by making beautifully stylized letters appear right before your eyes with just a few drops of ink.

Is it actual magic? It all depends on how you define magic. There’s definitely no sorcery here. But by using water to pencil letters on watercolor paper (so it’s not immediately absorbed) and then adding drops of brightly colored link that race through each character using capillary action, Lester creates a gorgeous optical illusion that’s magical enough for me.

[YouTube via The Awesomer]

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FCC broadband committee member quits over corporate influence

If you think that the FCC is basically controlled by the interests of big ISP-type businesses, you’re not alone. Even FCC members feel that Ajit Pai’s current gutting of net neutrality is a bad idea. Now even the mayor of San Jose has taken a stand. Sam Liccardo sent FCC chairman Pai a letter (originally provided by Axios) on January 25th, announcing his resignation from the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC).

In the letter, the mayor notes that he had "hoped to develop balanced, common-sense recommendations that will advance our goal of expanding broadband access across the country," especially for low-income and rural Americans. "I joined the BDAC cognizant that the composition of the panel heavily favored the industry, with more than three-quarters of the membership representing telecommunications companies or interests closely aligned with those companies," Liccardo wrote.

Still, he hoped that there would be movement toward constructive dialogue that would help cross the digital divide. Unfortunately, in his opinion, this hasn’t happened. Liccardo wrote that although the group has adopted principles that "pay lip service" to the objective, "not a single one of the draft recommendations attempts to meaningfully identify any new or significant resources to promote digital inclusion." He pointed to the committee’s most recent meeting in DC, in which there were two specific provisions that prioritized industry over municipal interests.

"It has become abundantly clear," Liccardo explained, "that despite the good intentions of several participants, the industry-heavy makeup of BDAC will simply relegate the body to being a vehicle for advancing the interests of the telecommunications industry over those of the public." His resignation from the BDAC is effective immediately.

Via: The Verge

Source: Axios, San Jose Mayor Liccardo

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The Morning After: Lyft investigates its own privacy problem

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

Congratulations, you’ve made it to Friday. Your reward is a special Sonos deal, some bad news for MoviePass customers and an interesting update about holograms.

It might be time.How to buy a smartwatch in 2018

Whether you’re buying with an eye towards fashion, fitness or features, we’ve got you covered. No matter what platform you’re on or what budget you have, if you’re ready to get a wearable then we can help you figure out which one is best for you.

Ready to hit Amazon where it hurts.Walmart teams up with Kobo to sell ebooks and audiobooks

While Amazon readies its retail push, Walmart is responding by taking aim at the ebook and audiobook market. The retailer has teamed up with Japanese e-commerce titan Rakuten to sell $120 Kobo eReaders in its stores.

Way to make it interesting.Sonos bundles two of its smart speakers for $349

On the same day pre-orders are opening for Apple’s $349 HomePod, Sonos is firing back. For a limited time, customers can buy a bundle of two Sonos One speakers at the same price, with Alexa support included and Google Assistant and AirPlay 2 on the way.

Check the app before you go.MoviePass abruptly cuts off access to several AMC theaters

While the $9.95 MoviePass plan is a great deal for its millions of subscribers, it’s expensive for the company to subsidize tickets that can cost more than that for one visit. Yesterday it suddenly removed several popular AMC theaters from the plan without much warning or explanation, but just looking at the math of its business provides a big hint.

‘3D light printing’ produces Princess Leia-like imagery.Researchers create ‘true’ 3D holograms in midair

Researchers from Brigham Young University (BYU) have created a true 3D hologram, or "volumetric image," to use the correct term. BYU’s device uses lasers to trap a tiny particle in free space, and force it to move in a path, much like how electromagnets deflect the electron beam in a CRT television. Other blue, red and green lasers then illuminate it. If the particle moves fast enough, it creates the illusion of a solid animated holographic image.

But wait, there’s more…

The Morning After is a new daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you’ll miss if you don’t Subscribe.

Craving even more? Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter.

Have a suggestion on how we can improve The Morning After? Send us a note.

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No, the “Ring of Fire” is Not More Active or Even a Real Thing

"The Ring of Fire is really active!" Yup, that’s what the headlines say. The supposed "Ring of Fire" — the chain of volcanoes and earthquakes that sits at edge of the Pacific Ocean — appears to be in the news a lot right now because of the eruptions in the Philippines and Indonesia and earthquakes in Alaska and California. However, this is all normal for these parts of the world, so let’s not get all worked up about it.
Let’s start off with the basics: the "Ring of Fire" is not a thing,

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