Thai taxi company turns its idle cars into vegetable gardens

https://www.autoblog.com/2021/09/26/thai-taxi-roof-garden/


Restrictions linked to the on-going coronavirus pandemic have devastated the taxi industry in Thailand. Many drivers left big cities to return to the villages they come from, so one Bangkok-based taxi company has transformed its fleet of idle cars into a giant vegetable garden.

“This is our last option. We need to grow vegetables on the roof of these taxis. We still have loans on some taxis, sometimes amounting to [about $21,000], that we took out in 2019 or 2020. These cars are just sitting here, so we figured we’d grow vegetables on them,” explained Thapakorn Assawalertkun, the man who helps run the vegetable-growing Ratchaphruek Taxi Cooperative, in an interview with France 24.

Bangkok’s taxi companies are heavily dependent on tourism, and the industry stalled as restrictions kept travelers at home throughout most of 2020. Some countries are gradually easing coronavirus-related travel bans, but the recovery has been slow and many drivers left to find work elsewhere, usually in the countryside. Assawalertkun said that the remaining employees all contributed money to start the garden.

The taxi fleet in Bangkok primarily consists of late-model Toyota sedans. Workers turned a Camry into a garden by spreading a plastic tarp over a bamboo frame and placing it on a flat panel, like the hood and the roof. Their crops include chili peppers, eggplants, and zucchini. They’re raising frogs as well; putting an old tire on a tarp and filling it with water creates a makeshift aquarium that frogs can develop in.

Vegetables grown and frogs raised by the taxi company will be used to feed its employees. Assawalertkun hopes to sell the surplus to local food markets to help keep his company and its workers afloat until tourism resumes. In the meantime, the garden keeps everyone occupied.

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September 26, 2021 at 01:15PM

Advocates Struggle to Control Police Use of Surveillance Tech

https://www.wired.com/story/hard-control-police-tech-law/


In 2018, Oakland enacted an innovative law giving citizens a voice in police use of surveillance technology. The Electronic Frontier Foundation called it “the new gold standard in community control of police surveillance.” Since then, about 20 other cities have adopted similar laws.

Now, Brian Hofer, one of the architects of Oakland’s law, says it’s not working. Earlier this month, Hofer filed suit against the city and the police department, saying they had repeatedly violated the law.

“We ignored human nature,” Hofer says in an interview. “Police don’t like to be transparent. Surveillance technology use is by design secretive, and no self-interested party is going to voluntarily highlight anything negative about their own proposal.” A spokesperson for the Oakland Police Department says it doesn’t comment on ongoing legal matters.

Even in Oakland, however, the law has given critics of police surveillance a platform. Indeed, Hofer sued under a provision of the law that allows citizens to take the city to court. He hopes it leads to the appointment of an independent counsel to review the police department’s data and assessment of surveillance tech.

“Like any law, [the surveillance ordinance] needs to be enforced,” says Matt Cagle, a staff attorney for the Technology and Civil Liberties Program at the ACLU of Northern California. “Which is why it’s so great to see people in Oakland and San Francisco use it to take the police to court.”

A national review of the laws—dubbed CCOPS, for Community Control of Police Surveillance—suggests other small successes. In Nashville, opposition from a community group created by such a law stopped—at least temporarily—a proposal for the city to buy automated license plate readers.

The laws vary in their specifics. Some require regular meetings between police and community members, annual audits for effectiveness and potential bias, greater transparency of vendors and the cost to taxpayers of any new tech, and a period of public comment before purchasing new tech such as body cameras or ShotSpotter, which uses microphones to detect gunfire.

In a student white paper released earlier this year, the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at the Berkeley School of Law said many of the ordinances are weaker than Oakland’s. New York City and Grand Rapids don’t empower citizens to file suit, as Oakland does. In six jurisdictions, including Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Palo Alto, California, police are exempt from the rules. So while a library or school would have to allow for public comment for new surveillance tools, police are exempt from restrictions if they’re executing a warrant or responding to a crisis.

Most of the cities give police broad latitude to use surveillance tech during “exigent circumstances.” Students Tyler Takemoto and Ari Chivukula, authors of the white paper, say this can create loopholes in citizen oversight.

“We know that different local governments considered, for example, racial justice uprisings last summer to fall within that category of extenuating exigent circumstances,” Takemoto says.

Acknowledging that there’s no perfect combination of rules, the authors suggest such ordinances empower citizens to sue and create independent bodies to oversee police and provide support. “Maybe the most important thing is the outside advice … a local nonprofit or community group that’s going to stay engaged,” Chivukula says. “If you don’t have public engagement, then there’s no pressure.”

The movement in Oakland toward reining in police surveillance began in 2014, when groups including the ACLU and EFF protested a proposed “Domain Awareness Center,” a fusion center combining microphones, CCTV, and surveillance data.

First created for port security, the city was moving toward approving a citywide expansion. The advocacy groups successfully campaigned to cancel the expansion and create a temporary privacy committee that would write policies for the city’s use of technology. This became an early iteration of the CCOPS model.

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September 24, 2021 at 06:09AM

Japanese Esports Team Is Filled With Senior Citizens

https://kotaku.com/japanese-esports-team-is-filled-with-senior-citizens-1847729104


In aging Japan, a senior citizen esports team seems overdue.
Screenshot: 時事通信映像センター

Meet the Matagi Snipers. Based in Akita, the eight-person team is Japan’s first senior esports professional team, complete with a sponsor and everything.

The team was established as a way to show the health benefits of esports for older adults, as well as to impress the grandkids. NHK reports that twenty-one people applied to join the team, but only eight made the cut. The hopefuls were selected on their gaming aptitude, even if they weren’t necessarily huge gamers—or ones, at all.

“Up until now, I never played video games,” said 67-year-old member Eba, who added that once she started playing, she felt that gaming was preventative for cognitive impairment by having her to move her hands and eyes as well as requiring to talk strategy to her teammates while playing. All of this has helped keep her sharp.

The Matagi Snipers, with its players ranging in ages from 66 to 73, is not the first esports team for older adults. Back in 2017, the Lenovo-sponsored Silver Snipers made a big splash by being Counter Strike esports filled with over-sixty players.

Showing a wider range of people playing makes esports more inclusive. Last year in Japan, an esports facility for senior citizens called ISR Esports opened in Kobe. Catering to only people over sixty, the facility aims to introduce video games to complete beginners. One 88-year-old man, who has been going to ISR Esports for the past year, admitted that he didn’t really like games. Now, however, he sees they are quite enjoyable. “That’s because there are lots of different types,” he told Japan’s ABC TV.

Practicing three times a week, the Matagi Snipers are slated to start streaming this October. The goal is to enter tournaments and win. Three times a week of practice seems light by esports standards, but this team does show the need for more senior teams—and leagues. Present-day pros cannot play at the same level forever, and perhaps as they aged, they’d still like to compete. Golf has the Senior PGA, why can’t esports?

via Kotaku https://kotaku.com

September 23, 2021 at 06:26AM

MIT’s toolkit lets anyone design their own muscle-sensing wearables

https://www.engadget.com/mit-toolkit-allows-you-to-design-your-own-health-monitoring-wearables-130010870.html?src=rss

MIT has unveiled a new toolkit that lets users design health-sensing devices that can detect how muscles move. The university’s Science and and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) created the kit using something called "electrical impedance tomography" (EIT), that measures internal conductivity to gauge whether muscles are activated or relaxed. The research could allow for wearables that monitor distracted driving, hand gestures or muscle movements for physical rehabilitation. 

In a paper, the researchers wrote that EIT sensing usually requires expensive hardware setups and complex algorithms to decipher the data. The advent of 3D printing, inexpensive electronics and open-source EIT image libraries has made it feasible for more users, but designing a wearable setup is still a challenge. 

To that end, the "EIT-kit" 3D editor allows users to enter the device parameters and place the sensors on a device that may go on a user’s wrist or leg, for instance. It can then be exported to a 3D printer and assembled, and the final step is to calibrate the device using a subject. For that, it’s connected to the EIT-kit’s sensing mother board, and "an on-board microcontroller library automates the electrical impedance measurement and lets you see the visual measured data, even on a mobile phone," according to CSAIL.

Where most wearables can only sense motion, and EIT device can sense actual muscle activity. The team built one prototype that could sense muscle strain and tension in a subject’s thigh, allowing them to monitor muscle recovery after an injury. It also showed other possible uses, like gesture recognition, a distracted driving detector and more. 

The team is working with Massachusetts General Hospital on rehabilitation tech using the devices while refining the tech. The eventual aim is to develop "rapid function prototyping techniques and novel sensing technologies," said lead author Junyi Zhu. 

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

September 22, 2021 at 08:09AM

Honda N-Van camper concept is for those who travel solo in Japan

https://www.autoblog.com/2021/09/21/honda-n-van-kei-car-camper-van-concept-japan/


For those who prefer to look out for No. 1 when they travel, Honda has a car to fit the bill. The company has unveiled a kei car camper concept that makes use of extremely clever packaging to create a single-bed sleeper car for the solo road-tripper.

The concept is based on the Honda N-Van, a Japan-market compact work van that is known for a cabin that can, aside from the driver’s seat, fold entirely flat. While it’s great for loading boxes and gear, in this case the unbroken horizontal floor makes the perfect surface for a mattress. When you get tired of driving, you can simply pull over and flop out of the driver’s seat onto your bed.

The N-Van is also known for its unique pillar-less architecture on the passenger side. The rear sliding door latches onto the hinged front door so that when both are open the aperture is greater than half the length of the cabin itself. Combined with a very low load height, it’s an ideal cargo hauler for Japan’s crowded and narrow urban streets. And in case you were wondering, the driver’s side still has a traditional B-pillar.

The camper concept is also fitted with a ceiling basket drawer that slides up against the headliner for storage, a peg-board area by the rear hatch for hanging items, and a folding awning that shades the large opening on the pillar-less side.

However, the N-Van also gives you the option of additional seating should you need it. A passenger jump seat can rise from the jigsaw puzzle-like floor, as can a second row of rear seats.

Because the N-Van falls under kei car rules, horsepower is limited to 63, which Honda makes from a turbo three-cylinder mated to either a six-speed manual or CVT. Kei cars are also limited in exterior dimensions to a prescribed footprint — under 134 inches long, 58 inches wide, 79 inches tall — which has forced Japanese automakers to come up with increasingly clever packaging solutions like this N-Van.

Honda plans to unveil the N-Van camper concept on Oct. 2 at the Feeld Good Festival (that’s not a typo, but rather a pun on “Field”), a camping and RV show in Hokkaido.

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September 21, 2021 at 04:08PM

30 million more vehicles being investigated in big Takata airbag recall

https://www.autoblog.com/2021/09/21/takata-airbag-nhtsa-investigation-30-million-vehicles/


The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Tuesday confirmed that it has opened an investigation into another 30 million vehicles that could be driving around with ticking time bombs — defective airbag inflator circuitry made by the Takata Corporation.

The concern is, the inflators can explode and, in rare instances, send deadly metal fragments flying, with deadly consequences. 

The worldwide Takata recalls taken together were already the largest safety recall in automotive history, involving more than 67 million Takata airbag inflators recalled in the United States and more than 100 million worldwide. Millions of those vehicles are still driving around with potentially dangerous airbags.

The defective inflators have killed at least 28 people worldwide, including 19 in the United States, and have caused more than 400 injuries. In the U.S., 16 of those deaths were in Honda vehicles, two in Fords and one in a BMW. Overseas, 9 other Honda deaths occurred in Malaysia, Brazil and Mexico.

NHTSA on Tuesday said the additional 30 million vehicles were manufactured by two dozen automakers between 2001 and 2019 — and comprise 1,384 different vehicle models in all. 

They include vehicles from Honda, Ford, Toyota, General Motors, Nissan, Subaru, Tesla, Ferrari, Mazda, Daimler, BMW, Chrysler, Porsche, Jaguar, Land Rover and others.  

The new investigation is an engineering analysis — meaning that this new round of vehicles is not yet part of the greater recall. NHTSA said that “while no present safety risk has been identified, further work is needed to evaluate the future risk of non-recalled” inflators. The agency “is not aware at this time of any ruptures, injuries or fatalities due to propellant degradation in these inflators, and the driving public does not need to take any action.”

The inflators in the new investigation contain a desiccant, or drying agent, that is supposed to keep moisture from degrading the circuitry. In the previous Takata recalls, propellant that was designed to inflate the airbag in an accident could break down after long-term exposure to large fluctuations in temperature and humidity. Those airbags did not contain a drying agent. The airbags now under investigation do.

Honda said automakers “have been working collaboratively with NHTSA to assure the safety of these inflators for several years. … Honda is committed to quickly informing NHTSA and other stakeholders if this ongoing analysis shows any risk of rupture.”

The Japanese automaker vowed to take quick action “if Honda believes that there is a threat to the safety of our customers.”

 

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September 21, 2021 at 08:31AM

Floods Have Swamped the US. The Next Health Problem: Mold

https://www.wired.com/story/floods-have-swamped-the-us-the-next-health-problem-mold/


There’s a long history of natural disasters making people sick. Reports range from cases of Valley fever after the Northridge earthquake in California in 1994 tossed dirt containing spores of Coccidia bacteria into the air, to aspergillus infections caused by victims of the 2011 Japanese tsunami aspirating bacteria-laden water, to people infected and killed by fungi carried on debris from the Joplin, Missouri, tornado, also in 2011.

But it can be hard to pinpoint when an infection or reaction is related to mold specifically, because the damage caused by disasters exposes victims to so many substances. “After these flooding events or hurricanes, there’s so much going on: Not only are you dealing with a house full of mold, but you’re ripping that house apart, so there’s drywall and dust and plaster and all kinds of things that you’re potentially inhaling,” says Tom Chiller, a physician and chief of the mycotic diseases branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It’s hard to tease out the effect of mold.”

Researchers thus face a conundrum: Their clinical instincts tell them people are at risk, but they have a dearth of data to prove it. Immune-compromised people are always at risk for mold and fungal infections; their diminished defenses render them unable to clear away the fungal spores that we all breathe in every day, leaving them vulnerable to organisms such as aspergillus and the ferocious mutant yeast Candida auris. The CDC estimates that more than 75,000 people are hospitalized annually for invasive fungal infections, and cost the health care system about $4.5 billion a year.

The ones most at risk are transplant patients who received donor organs or underwent leukemia treatment, and take immune system-suppressing drugs to sustain their recovery. Those people, researchers say, shouldn’t be anywhere near a moldy house, let alone working to remediate one, and should stay away from floodwaters. But in a survey of 103 immunosuppressed patients the CDC and several Houston hospitals conducted after Hurricane Harvey, half of them admitted they had gone back to clean out their flooded houses, and only two-fifths of that half said they had worn a protective respirator.

The CDC has been working with some of those hospitals on a more complex post-Harvey project, not yet published, which reviews medical records from one year before and after the hurricane to capture whether immune-suppressed people developed invasive fungal infections related to the storm. There’s no clear signal in the data, says Mitsuru Toda, an epidemiologist in the agency’s mycotic diseases branch: “In aggregate, we do see an increase after Hurricane Harvey in the number of people who had invasive mold infections, but some hospitals had a decrease, some hospitals had an increase, and the numbers are small.”

Complicating that finding, she adds, is that some mold and fungal infections have incubation periods long enough that symptoms might not have manifested during that post-storm year. Plus, Toda says, some physicians in Houston told the agency they preemptively put their most immune-suppressed patients on antifungal drugs—which protected those patients, but would have confounded any calculations of the hurricane’s effect on their health.

Ostrosky-Zeichner was one of those clinicians. “In theory, we should be seeing hordes of mold infections after major flooding events and hurricanes, but we’re not quite seeing that so far,” he says.

Researchers are also worried about the much larger proportion of the population, estimated to be up to 40 percent, who are prone to allergies and could react to mold and fungal growths in their houses—as well as about the rest of the population, who can develop new allergies after exposure. “For most people, the health effect that we see most often is respiratory,” says Felicia Rabito, an epidemiologist and associate professor at Tulane’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. “A severe reaction would be like a breathing problem; a less severe reaction would be allergic-type symptoms. If you’re an asthmatic, though, and mold is a trigger, you can trigger an asthma attack, which is a very serious reaction.”

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September 20, 2021 at 06:03AM