The pledge, presented to Pope Francis today, calls for AI that safeguards the rights of all humans, especially the underprivileged, and for new regulations in areas like facial recognition. It asks tech leaders to “humanise technology and not ‘technologise’ humanity,” Novena News reports.”The Vatican is not an expert on the technology but on values,” Francesca…
Tag: Technology
Amazon’s first big ‘Go’ grocery store opens in Seattle with 5,000 products
While this isn’t a brand new concept – Amazon has been running a number of Go convenience stores since 2018 — this is the first time the technology has been implemented on such a large scale. Shoppers can choose from a much wider range of goods, such as organic produce and wine, making the concept…
Hyundai’s slippery Prophecy concept EV is controlled by joysticks
The wheels are pushed well to the corners to maximize space in the interior, which has plenty of the tech you’d expect in a concept EV. Joysticks are used to control it in place of a steering wheel and have buttons that let the driver access various functions. It’s also got a pillar-to-pillar display in…
Amazon’s checkout-free tech is heading to other retailers
Amazon has been operating a number of these cashless convenience stores in the US since 2018. Shoppers download the Amazon Go app, beep themselves into the store using a QR code, then simply pick up whatever they want and leave. The store’s item-tracking system knows what they’ve selected, and bills them automatically via the app.…
FCC could require phone companies to authenticate calls
Under the STIR/SHAKEN protocol, carriers verify that a call is legitimate (not coming from a spoofed number) before it reaches the recipient. In 2018, Pai urged carriers to implement the protocol by 2019. AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile and Verizon (Engadget’s parent company) have all implemented the tech in one way or another, but robocalls are still…
Waymo doesn’t like California’s benchmark for self-driving research
As the latest report from the DMV shows, Waymo logged 1.45 million self-driven miles in California last year, with a disengagement rate of 0.076 per 1,000 miles. Cruise, for comparison, clocked 831,040 miles with a disengagement rate of 0.082. In a Twitter thread, however, Waymo stressed that the metric “does not provide relevant insights” into…
Alphabet’s Loon, telecoms unite to boost high-altitude internet
The Alliance will push for governments to adopt high-altitude internet, of course, but it’ll also work on a cooperative environment with common specs and standards. The aim is ultimately to create a single “compelling message” to sell the concept, even if the individual companies end up competing with each other.This comes roughly 10 months after…
Best Buy discounts the entry MacBook Air to its best price yet
The good news is Best Buy has also discounted the 256GB variant. At the moment, you can buy the gold and silver models for $1,050, and the space gray one for $1,100. We’ve seen the 256GB MacBook Air sell for less in the past, but that was part of a short Amazon deal of the…
‘Half-Life: Alyx’ creators explain how its VR gameplay will work
In an IGN exclusive, the pair explain that for many players, Alyx will be their first foray into VR gaming. As such, they took a number of measures to help newbies get acquainted with the technology. Shooting and reloading is a completely different ballgame to controller-based play, for example, so Alyx’s starter levels involve lots…
Epic buys the company behind God of War’s facial animations
Epic presumably plans to integrate Cubic Motion’s technology into the Unreal Engine to make it more appealing to game developers. Alongside Unity, UE4 is one of the most popular game creation tools in use today. Some recent UE4 games include Final Fantasy VII Remake, Gears 5, The Outer Worlds and, of course, Fortnite.According to GamesIndustry,…