Month: May 2021

Back in the ‘80s, Nintendo’s renewed commitment to quality games helped the company rebuild the crashed video game market with the NES, but now that consoles basically print money, the company seems less worried about what ends up on its hardware. A new $10 app promises to turn your Switch into a motion-detecting spy alarm—just don’t set your expectations too high.

Nintendo didn’t really promote the feature when the Switch originally launched, but when the cardboard Labo kits were released it was revealed that each Joy-Con controller featured an infrared camera that could detect the presence of light that was invisible to human eyes. It’s what made many of those wacky cardboard creations work, and it’s how the upcoming Spy Alarm promises to keep an eye out for intruders.

You’re probably not familiar with a game developer called Sabec, but if you follow Switch gaming news you undoubtedly saw reports of a $10 scientific calculator app recently being released for the console. It was developed by the same people behind Spy Alarm, which is expected to hit the Switch’s app store on May 27.

The app’s functionality looks rather basic. You place one of your Joy-Cons on a flat, stable surface and point it “towards the area you want to protect.” If someone breaks the invisible beam emitted by the Joy-Con, the app will sound an alarm and log the incident by time. The app features sensitivity adjustments, but with a range of around 39 inches it doesn’t actually sound like that sensitive of a security solution. If an intruder is wearing bright or highly reflective clothing, the range is improved, but how often do you see spies or burglars in the movies suiting up in neon yellow tracksuits?

There’s also the issue that the Switch has to be turned on and actively running the Spy Alarm app for it to keep an eye out for intruders. That alone is a dead giveaway, and unless you’re within range of the alarm, it’s not able to send notifications to a mobile device like proper security equipment can. Unless you’re in it for the novelty, you’re better off putting that $10 toward a $30 motion-sensing security camera that keeps an eye out for you while you’re still able to play New Pokémon Snap.

Between Microsoft’s Tay debacle, the controversies surrounding Northpointe’s Compas sentencing software, and Facebook’s own algorithms helping spread online hate, AI’s more egregious public failings over the past few years have shown off the technology’s skeevy underbelly — and just how much work we have to do before they can reliably and equitably interact with humanity. Of course such incidents have done little to tamp down the hype around and interest in artificial intelligences and machine learning systems, and they certainly haven’t slowed the technology’s march towards ubiquity.

Turns out, one of the primary roadblocks to emerge against AI’s continued adoption have been the users themselves. We’re no longer the same dial-up rubes we were in the baud rate era. An entire generation has already grown to adulthood without ever knowing the horror of an offline world. And as such, we have seen a sea change in perspectives regarding the value of personal data and the business community’s responsibilities to change it. Just look at the overwhelmingly positive response to Apple’s recent iOS 14.5 update, which grants iPhone users an unprecedented level of control over how their app data is leveraged and by whom.

Now, the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Institute (RAI) — a non-profit developing governance tools to help usher in a new generation of trustworthy, safe, Responsible AIs — hopes to offer a more standardized means of certifying that our next HAL won’t murder the entire crew. In short they want to build “the world’s first independent, accredited certification program of its kind.” Think of the LEED green building certification system used in construction but with AI instead.

“We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg,” when it comes to potential bad behaviors perpetrated by AIs, Mark Rolston, founder and CCO of argodesign, told Engadget. ”[AI is] now really insinuating itself into very ordinary aspects of how businesses conduct themselves and how people experience everyday life. When they start to understand more and more of how AI is behind that, they will want to know that they can trust it. That will be a fundamental issue, I think, for the foreseeable future.”

Work towards this certification program began nearly half a decade ago alongside the founding of RAI itself, at the hands of Dr. Manoj Saxena, University of Texas Professor on Ethical AI Design, RAI Chairman and a man widely considered to be the ”’father” of IBM Watson, though his initial inspiration came even further back.

“When I was asked by the IBM board to commercialize Watson, I started realizing all these issues — I’m talking 10 years ago now — about building trust in automated decisioning systems including AI,” he told Engadget. “The most important question that people used to ask me when we were trying to commercialize was, ‘How do I trust this system?’”

Answering that question is the essence of RAI’s work. As Saxena describes it, AI today guides our interactions with the myriad facets of the modern world much like how Google Maps helps us get from one place to another. Except instead of navigating streets, AI is helping us make financial and healthcare decisions, who to Netflix and Chill with, and what you watch on Netflix ahead of the aforementioned chillin’. “All of these are getting woven in by AI and AI is being used to help improve the engagement and decisions,” he explained. “We realized that there are two big problems.”

The first is the same issue that has plagued AI since its earliest iterations: we have no flippin’ clue as to what’s going on inside them. They’re black boxes running opaque decision trees to reach a conclusion whose validity can’t accurately be explained by either the AI’s users or its programmers. This lack of transparency is not a good look when you’re trying to build trust with a skeptical public. “We figured that bringing transparency and trust to AI and automated decisioning models is going to be an incredibly important capability just like it was bringing security to the web [in the form of widespread HTTPS adoption],” Saxena said.

The second issue is, how do you solve the first issue in a fair and independent manner. We’ve already seen what happens when society leaves effective monopolies like Facebook and Google to regulate themselves. We saw the same shenanigans when Microsoft swore up and down that it would self-regulate and play fair during the Desktop Wars of the 1990s — hell, the Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860 came about specifically because telecoms of the era couldn’t be trusted to not screw over their customers without government oversight. This is not a new problem but RAI thinks its certification program might be its modern solution.

Certifications are awarded in four levels — basic, silver, gold, and platinum (sorry, no bronze) — based on the AI’s scores along the five OECD principles of Responsible AI: interpretability/explainability, bias/fairness, accountability, robustness against unwanted hacking or manipulation, and data quality/privacy. The certification is administered via questionnaire and a scan of the AI system. Developers must score 60 points to reach the base certification, 70 points for silver and so on, up to 90 points-plus for platinum status.

Rolston notes that design analysis will play an outsized role in the certification process. “Any company that is trying to figure out whether their AI is going to be trustworthy needs to first understand how they’re constructing that AI within their overall business,” he said. “And that requires a level of design analysis, both on the technical front and in terms of how they’re interfacing with their users, which is the domain of design.”

RAI expects to find (and in some cases has already found) a number of willing entities from government, academia, enterprise corporations, or technology vendors for its services, though the two are remaining mum on specifics while the program is still in beta (until November 15th, at least). Saxena hopes that, like the LEED certification, RAI will eventually evolve into a universalized certification system for AI. He argues, it will help accelerate the development of future systems by eliminating much of the uncertainty and liability exposure today’s developers — and their harried compliance officers — face while building public trust in the brand.

“We’re using standards from IEEE, we are looking at things that ISO is coming out with, we are looking at leading indicators from the European Union like GDPR, and now this recently announced algorithmic law,” Saxena said. “We see ourselves as the ‘do tank’ that can operationalize those concepts and those think tank’s work.”

One afternoon, a couple of months before my mother died of colon cancer, I crowded onto her bed to join her and my aunt where they lay side by side, my 8-month-old daughter playing between them. I pulled out my phone to record the two of them as they talked. 

“What’s something you remember from when you were growing up?” I asked. The two sisters gave each other sideways glances and began to chuckle. In between bouts of laughter, they recounted the time my mother came home drunk one night well past curfew during her typically well-behaved teenage years, and in her highly inebriated state needed the help of my aunt to get into the house without waking up their parents and other siblings. The story was light and hilarious, and one I had heard before, but I hung on every word as if the secret to life itself was being decoded before my eyes. In this moment of laughter and ease it was blissfully easy to forget that there was a killer disease lying in the bed with us. For three years this recording sat untouched on my phone, an anchor I could call upon when and if ready.

This January, 10 months into shelter-in-place and one year post-partum from the birth of my second child, I decided to hire a nutritionist. I need help. I love sugar, which has sent my A1C levels spiking to near pre-Diabetic levels. I also love staying up late when the house is quiet to treat myself to all the podcasts, movies, and TV series I can’t fit into my day. These twin loves do not love me back, and I realize that feeling exhausted and foggy most mornings is the exact opposite of treating myself.

One of the first things that Peta-Gaye Williams, my new nutritionist, instructs me to do is schedule meals and bedtime on my smartphone. I learn about the chicken and egg of sleep and nutrition: My poor sleeping habits fuel my food choices, and my food choices contribute to my sleep habits. “Setting alarms for meals and sleep is like appointments you’re keeping with yourself,” Williams tells me. I set out to dutifully follow these instructions, somewhat skeptical because I have never been great about self-accountability. Scrolling through my apps to find the alarm tone I’ll use, I come across the file of my mother and aunt telling the story of the drunken night out. This recording has remained untouched on my phone for three years, and I feel a jolt when I realize I can plug it into my schedule in lieu of an alarm as my cue for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime.

Two months into this practice, this recording still catches me off guard. I’ll be working at my desk, or changing a diaper, or in the bathroom when I’ll hear my mother and aunt laughing from some corner of the house. I find my phone by following their voices, listening to the fire, and love pooling from their mouths as the story unfolds. Once I find the phone, feeling it subtly vibrate in my palm as they speak, I head to the fridge and make my meal, or get into bed at my ridiculously early preset time—a time apparently not that ridiculous, as I find myself asleep a few minutes after putting my head to the pillow.

When the breakfast alarm goes off, the story begins: “And you called me and I had to let you in…” my aunt says to my mother as I sit at the kitchen table and eat my spinach and eggs. At lunchtime, they have gotten to the point in the story where my mother tells my aunt to stick a finger down her throat, as she is too drunk to do it herself. I listen to them belly laugh as I eat more greens and a piece of fish. By the time I arrive at my dinner alarm, my mother and aunt are arguing over the details of what happened in the aftermath. “No, Mommy and Daddy never found out.” “Yes, they did.” And by the time my nighttime alarm goes off bidding me to crawl into bed, the story has petered off and my mother and aunt are arguing over whether or not my daughter needs some water. This recording is now like a song whose lyrics I have memorized, keeping time with me over the course of my day.

Research is beginning to make clear that certain groups of people won’t enjoy the same level of highly effective protection provided by covid-19 vaccines as everyone else. Studies are finding that people who are immunocompromised are less likely to develop immunity against the coronavirus after vaccination.

Even before the vaccine rollout began in earnest last late year, experts expected that people with weakened immune systems would be less protected by vaccination. It’s already known that the virus can cause more serious illness and survive far longer in immunocompromised people, thanks to a weaker immune response generated against it. This same weak immune response could also make the immunocompromised more susceptible to reinfection, which is thought to be a rare occurrence among most people. But more real-world evidence is starting to paint a picture of how much less effective vaccine-provided immunity may be for these individuals.

Earlier this month, for instance, a study looking at hundreds of organ transplant recipients found that only 15% produced antibodies to the coronavirus soon after the first dose of a mRNA vaccine. By the second dose, only 54% did. Antibodies aren’t the only indicator of immunity, but plenty of other research has shown that the vast majority of people, after infection or vaccination, do create antibodies and have robust immunity, so the results were unsettling nonetheless.

Organ transplant recipients and people with conditions like certain cancers must take immune-suppressing drugs or treatments like radiation that artificially weaken their immune system. Yet there are also people who are born with or develop immune deficiencies that similarly weaken the body’s ability to mount an effective immune response to infection or vaccination. Estimates vary, but somewhere around 10 million Americans are thought to be immunocompromised in some way, leaving them at higher risk for severe covid-19 even after vaccination.

“Risk is very different for people in my situation,” Maria Hoffman, a kidney transplant recipient, told the Washington Post in an article published Tuesday. “I am 100% acting like I am not immunized.”

It’s possible that booster shots down the line may improve outcomes for immunocompromised people. As the pandemic continues to decline in the U.S., everyone’s absolute risk will decline as well, with fewer cases meaning a lower likelihood of encountering the virus. But many experts have criticized the CDC’s newly relaxed guidelines on mask-wearing for neglecting the impact they could have on immunocompromised people. The guidelines say that only fully vaccinated people can stop wearing masks in most situations, but some states have used the changes to justify lifting nearly all their restrictions altogether. And the lack of a clear way to distinguish the vaccinated from the unvaccinated will likely lead to some people taking off their masks when they shouldn’t, potentially putting other unvaccinated people and vaccinated-but-immunocompromised people at risk.

Most vaccinated Americans will be able to safely enjoy the summer without much needed worry about covid-19, but it’s a luxury that millions of people in the U.S., including the immunocompromised, won’t have.

The Discovery Channel is launching a new reality show competition series, “Who Wants To Be An Astronaut,” that aims to send ordinary people into space, the network announced Today (May 18).

Axiom Space says it will rocket the lucky winner of the competition to the International Space Station for an eight-day mission. They aim for this mission to follow the launch of the world’s first all-private mission to the orbiting complex, which the company hopes to launch in 2022.

That said, NASA has not yet stated if they will allow the winner of this reality series onto the space station. A few weeks ago, a spaceflight reality show competition called “Space Hero” announced that it had signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA, but the agency clarified that so far, the agreement doesn’t say that the winner can fly to the space station as the series advertises.

Related: ‘Space Hero’ reality show competition signs space act agreement with NASA 

The casting call on Discovery’s website says that eligibility is limited to U.S. residents or citizens, with additional requirements to be disclosed. For now, there are few other details about eligibility for hopeful astronauts applying to the Discovery show, the expected challenges entrants will face and who will serve as judges for the competition, as the series isn’t expected to start filming until next year. 

It is so far unclear whether or not eligibility may include people with physical disabilities, but the casting call does include questions about your degree of impairment with physical activities. (The European Space Agency’s current astronaut process is open to candidates with physical disabilities, and the forthcoming Inspiration4 mission includes Hayley Arceneaux, who has a prosthetic limb after childhood bone cancer.) 

Discovery said the series will be in eight parts and will chronicle a “grueling” process. “The series will follow each of the contestants competing for the opportunity in a variety of extreme challenges designed to test them on the attributes real astronauts need most, and as they undergo the training necessary to qualify for space flight and life on board the space station,” the channel said in a statement.

“In the end, one lucky candidate, deemed to have the right stuff by a panel of expert judges, will punch their ticket for an adventure few have ever taken. The series will chronicle each pivotal moment along the way – from lift off to re-entry and the return home.”

The show will be available on the main Discovery Channel as well as its affiliate website and apps, the company noted. 

Perhaps the most interesting comparison to Discovery’s efforts is the flights of Toyohiro Akiyama and Helen Sharman, Japanese and British private citizens, respectively, who visited the then-Soviet Union’s Mir space station in 1990 and 1991. Akiyama, a TV journalist, was selected from 163 Tokyo Broadcasting System employees who applied for the flight. Sharman, a British chemist, won a ride in a contest (which attracted 13,000 applicants) sponsored by several British companies that aimed to send a British citizen to Mir.

Prior to upcoming commercial launches and the all-private Inspiration4 mission, NASA flew a few private flyers, teachers and politicians as “spaceflight participants” on the space shuttle in the 1980s (including teacher Christa McAuliffe who died in the 1986 Challenger space shuttle accident and newly named administrator Bill Nelson, then a member of the House of Representatives). Also, a handful of rich tourists have also made it to space after paying for their seat.  

That said, other astronaut competitions open to the public haven’t yet resulted in a promised spaceflight. In 2017, for example, Suzanne Imber won the BBC Two television program “Astronauts, Do You Have What It Takes?” in which judge and former astronaut Chris Hadfield recommended her for the European Space Agency after a competitive process. Imber has not yet gone on to fly. 

In 2012, an effort called Mars One announced its plans to send people on a one-way trip to the Red Planet, with a possible TV series to help generate funding and interest. It winnowed down the competition to a few dozen entrants before going bankrupt in 2019.  

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

The Sakuu Corporation, a California-based company backed by Musashi Seimitsu, has announced a new 3D printing system that can print large electric vehicle batteries on demand. The system uses new techniques to create solid-state batteries that are lighter and smaller than traditional lithium-ion batteries.

The system uses two types of printing to get the job done. It has a powder bed system for sintering material into solid form and another head for jet deposition which essentially squirts material out to exacting specifications. It prints both ceramic and metal as well as PoraLyte—a support and storage medium.

“This is the exact opposite of lower energy density SSBs, which typically have thick, brittle ceramic layers and poor interface, making them ill-suited for high-volume production purposes,” wrote Sarah Saunders at industry newsletter 3DPrint.

“Sakuu will initially focus on the two-, three- and smaller four-wheel electric vehicle market for whom the company’s SSB proposition delivers an obvious and desirable combination of small form factor, low weight, and improved capacity benefits,” wrote founder Robert Bagheri in a release. “The agility of Sakuu’s AM process also means that customers can easily switch production to different battery types and sizes, as necessary, for example, to achieve double the energy in the same space or the same energy in half the space.”

Because the entire system is easily modifiable you could be printing batteries for a car and a scooter on the same day. The company claims its printers are 50% lighter and 20% smaller than traditional LiOn batteries.

Most important, however, is the fact that it can use recycled ceramic and metal instead of fresh materials, thereby reducing the battery’s overall environmental footprint. The 3D-printed batteries are rolling out in limited products including scooters and other electric vehicles.