Technology

A proposed new smartphone would include two physical switches to control privacy. The Murena 2 would run Android apps, but use its own operating system. The makers have reached a (very low) funding goal on the Kickstarter site with around 450 sales ... at the time of writing. That theoretically means the project can go ahead, though without any legal guarantee it will do so. The main selling point of the phone is a privacy-focused design, which the makers say is to tackle data being collected on Android and iPhones even when the owner isn't actively using the handset. The most eye-catching part ... (view more)

Samsung and Apple are both reportedly working on "smart ring" fitness trackers. They're designed as an alternative to smart watches, though with some inherent limitations. Several companies already sell smart rings to wear on the finger, but none ... are household names. The likes of Apple and Samsung getting into the market could be a breakthrough, particularly for people with the relevant brand mobile phones. The logic behind the devices is that some people want to track fitness measures such as step count and heart activity, but don't want to wear a special watch. For example, they may already ... (view more)

Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, is set to reduce its robotaxi fleet by 50% in San Francisco, according to information from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). ( Source: cnbc.com ) The decision follows a series of mishaps ... involving Cruise's autonomous vehicles in the city. These incidents include instances where the self-driving cars halted in intersections and a collision with a fire truck. The move is a setback for Cruise, as it had recently launched a paid robotaxi service in San Francisco, operating alongside Google parent company Alphabet's Waymo. Driverless ... (view more)

A new form of computer memory has won an award for innovation. UltraRAM combines the performance of ordinary computer memory with the long-term storage of flash. Most memory in a computer is DRAM (dynamic random access memory). This holds data that ... the computer processor is most likely to need to access imminently. It's a little like having paper documents on a desktop rather than in a filing cabinet: the cabinet has much more room, but it takes some time to walk to the cabinet to get the information, versus having it right on the desktop. One of the key drawbacks of DRAM is that it stores ... (view more)

The FTC is asking the public whether facial "age estimation" is a smart way to make sure games companies don't break privacy rules for children. The tool would be used to check the age of adults giving consent, not to check the age of the player. ... The proposal originally caused some major confusion as it comes from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which rates games for age suitability in a similar way to the Motion Picture Association's movie ratings. However, this proposal has nothing to do with checking whether somebody is old enough to play a game. Instead, it's to do with ... (view more)

Two sets of researchers into quantum computing have announced very different sets of results. One claim they've already achieved more powerful performance than a traditional computer, while the others say they've confirmed the potential for ... performing genuinely useful tasks. Quantum computing aims to take advantage of the way particles can exist in more than one state at a time. That compares with traditional computers which store data in bits, each of which is either a 0 or a 1. In principle at least, a quantum computer could be made up of "qbits" and perform calculations dramatically faster ... (view more)

A senior European official has warned that using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to decide whether to offer a mortgage could lead to discrimination. Margrethe Vestager said this was a more likely risk than dramatic predictions of AI leading to human ... distinction. Vestager is the European Commissioner for Competition. That's a key position as not only is she responsible for competition and antitrust issues across the 27 countries in the European Union, but her work affects businesses around the world that operate in Europe, including tech companies. Talking to the BBC she warned that AI can ... (view more)

Researchers say a feature in a jogging and running app called Strava makes it possible to track down a user's home address. However, they make a pretty weak argument about how plausible and successful an attack would be. Strava lets users track ... their fitness activities, including running routes. Since 2018, the app has included a "heatmap" feature that shows areas where a lot of users are active. The idea is to let people spot well-used running routes that may be useful for their needs. The feature has already been criticized after it revealed routes used by US military personnel on foreign ... (view more)

Google's DeepMind group, whose technology "mastered" the game Go, have turned their attention to computer code. They created an AI tool that taught itself a more efficient way to sort code, something that could mean software runs much faster and ... more smoothly. DeepMind specializes in artificial intelligence (AI) that teaches itself by figuring out approaches and rules. The most famous example was a project to learn the fiendishly complex game Go. Rather than follow tactics created by humans, the software simulated millions of games and worked out its own strategy. It has since consistently ... (view more)

The US Air Force (USAF) official who previously claimed that the Air Force conducted a simulated test where an AI drone killed its human operator is now retracting his statement, stating that he "misspoke." USAF's Chief of AI Test and Operations, ... Colonel Tucker "Cinco" Hamilton clarified that the test described was a hypothetical thought experiment rather than an actual simulation carried out by the Air Force. The Royal Aeronautical Society, the organization where Hamilton made the initial statement, confirmed this in an email to Motherboard's vice.com.(Source: vice.com ) Misinterpretation of ... (view more)