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Tesla Driver Dies while Car in Autopilot Mode

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Tesla Model S Wheel and dashboardOn May 7, a man from Williston, Florida, lost his life in a car crash when a large truck made a left turn in front of his Tesla model S car which was running on autopilot. Federal investigators are currently investigating the case.

Tesla, which unveiled the accident Thursday, said that a federal agency is now probing whether its cars’ autopilot feature is safe for the public roads. The car crash could now spark a lot of soul searching within the driverless car industry, some analysts suggest.

Though it is the first time a person dies while a car is in autopilot mode, there had been other reports of incidents related to the technology.

Tesla said that the Williston driver’s car ended up under the big rig whose bottom smashed the car’s windshield. The company said that the autopilot and driver were deceived by the bright lit sky which made it impossible for them to detect the white trailer truck moving in the car’s direction.

As a result the car failed to brake in time. Tesla, which reported the collision to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that very day, said that the autopilot mode was still in beta testing.

The firm noted that the feature is far from perfect and gets constantly improved. Furthermore, the feature is not turned on by default. A driver needs “explicit acknowledgement” before activating the system that he is aware that the mode is in a beta phase.

Additionally, the system prompts the driver to keep his or her hands on the wheel while autopilot is on. The driver is also prompted to stay alert and get ready to take control of the vehicle at any time.

Industry analysts believe that the recent fatal crash won’t make customers lose faith in Tesla but in the infallibility of the autopilot feature. Karl Brauer of the Kelley Blue Book believes that the tragic incident is an opportunity to educate customers before driverless cars become mainstream.

NHTSA announced that it would probe the “design and performance” of the autopilot in Tesla Model S cars while also investigating the fatal crash and the vehicle.

Other analysts think that the car crash won’t ruin the momentum of automated driving technology unless the agency finds that driverless driving is more dangerous than conventional driving.

Image Source: Wikimedia

Adélie Penguins In Antarctica Endangered by Climate Change

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adelie penguins

A new climate study has more bad news to deliver on the front of global warming and its bad influence on the populations of Adélie penguins in Antarctica.

The ice-free and rocky land is favored by these tuxedo-clad birds for breeding. As glaciers have melted gradually over the centuries, Adélie penguins seemed to thrive in the once icebound land.

However, it seems that the Antarctic climate has reached a tipping point, and researchers claim that future warming will likely contribute to the further decline of Adélie colonies.

“It is only in recent decades that we know Adélie penguins population declines are associated with warming, which suggests that many regions of Antarctica have warmed too much and that further warming is no longer positive for the species,” explained Megan Cimino, a researcher at the University of Delaware in the College of Earth, Ocean and the Environment.

Cimino, who’s one of the study’s co-authors, added that Adélie penguins live in colonies all along the Antarctic, and prefer rocky patches of ground for breeding from October through February. This is one of the traits that differentiate them from emperor penguins, which have no trouble breeding on ice.

Previous studies had already found serious declines in the populations of Adélie penguins in particular regions of Antarctica (West Antarctica was the worst affected).

In order to determine the impact of climate on the future of bird populations, Cimino’s team analyzed head counts from real colonies, in addition to satellite imagery and temperature data of vast regions of Antarctica that are either ice-bound or ice-free.

Thanks to high-resolution satellite imagery, the researchers were also able to accurately estimate the penguin colony size. After cross-referencing this data with unusual climate patterns between 1981 and 2010, Cimino combined the results with climate models to predict future sea ice and temperature, and its impact on future penguin populations.

Some of the Adélie penguins will have it rough: the models show that by 2060, roughly 30 percent of the colonies will have suffered a drop in numbers, while another 60 percent of colonies will be in serious decline by the end of this century.

According to the report in the journal Scientific Reports, at least half of the Adélie penguins could disappear by 2099. Colonies in the West Antarctic Peninsula are the most prone to face declining penguin populations.
Image Source: Flickr

Twitter Introduces Engage App for Monitoring Feedback

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In many respects, Twitter feels like the Wild West of social networks: a disorganized flood of tweets from all kinds of sources. Users find it difficult to keep track of who’s following you and your activity, but it’s just as bad for brands and influencers.

Thankfully, Twitter has launched a companion app called Engage that can help address the fact that there are no tools to monitor and manage feedback and audience engagement.

But with the Engage app, users can get a big-picture sense of their followship with “real-time data and insights,” according to Matt Dennebaum, the Senior Product Manager at Twitter.

How does the app work, exactly? As Dennebaum wrote in a blog post, Engage surfaces your Twitter mentions – basically each time a follower tweets at your account – by sending you notifications.

engage app

At the same time, the companion app also provides users with a detailed dashboard of statistics that you can examine whenever. It will display the number of retweets, likes, mentions, and impressions that have occurred in a given time frame.

Plus, Engage features percentage changes and weekly totals so you know how you or your brand fared in the past seven days. And for those interested in the little details, Twitter’s new app also allows you to individually track the performance of images, GIFs, and videos.

“As creators, influencers, and public figures, you have a special connection with your followers on Twitter,” explained Dennebaum. “Through Tweets, you can share content and have conversations with fans and other influencers in real time — and now we’ve made it easier to manage those daily interactions and measure success.”

Engage has not been equipped with a Twitter timeline, but that’s its design. Instead of having yet another app filled with tens of thousands of tweets, you get a distillation: only the mentions you want and the statistics in the form of pure metrics.

By default, such a design has its downside: Engage is isolating, separating you from the Twitter fray. Instead, you’re simply broadcasting content and awaiting a feedback in the form of retweets and “likes.”

But given that many popular Twitter accounts already tend to be one-sided, Engage could be the app that formalizes the status quo.
Image Source: Quartz

Apple Settlement in E-book Lawsuit Sees $400 Million Payed to Consumers

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alt= man reading e-book on iPad

Did you buy an e-book from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, or Barnes & Noble between April 1, 2010, and May 21, 2012? If you did, you should expect a check or credit any time now.

If you haven’t made any e-book purchases over this period, we’re sorry, but you’re not getting a dime out of Apple’s payout to U.S. customers, as the long-running e-book price-fixing battle comes to its final stage.

Starting June 21, the tech giant will be ultimately forced to pay a $450 million settlement to millions of e-book customers who will start receiving payments in the form of checks and credits for losses.

The settlement incurred as a result of a reported price-fixing scheme that put Apple and a number of publishers on the spot; Macmillan, Hachette Book Group, Penguin, Simon and Schuster, and HarperCollins were also involved.

If you’re among the affected customers, expect to receive a $6.93 credit for every New York Times bestseller e-book you bought, and a $1.57 credit for each of the other e-books.

Attorneys described the refund process as “uniquely simple,” as payouts are automatically being sent to consumers’ accounts at big e-book retailers, such as Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble.

Refunded customers will also receive an email direct from the retailer informing them about the crediting of their account. But who is up to get a credit, and who’ll get a check?

Law firm Hagens Berman, the one who litigated the case with the Department of Justice said that “If e-book purchasers requested a check in lieu of a credit, they will receive a check. If purchasers received a credit during the first round of distribution of publisher settlements, and they did not opt out, they will automatically receive a credit.”

First accused in 2010 of fixing e-book prices, Apple was served with the class-action suit that led to this month’s payout only two years later.

The settlement – which involves $400 million shared between affected customers – has been described by Hagens Berman as “one of the most successful recoveries of damages in any antitrust lawsuit in the country.”

Of the remaining $50 million, $30 million will be used to cover legal fees, and $20 million will be split among the 33 states involved in the e-book lawsuit.

Even though the publishers settled several years ago, Apple kept on fighting the suit until this March, when the Supreme Court rejected its final appeal.
Image Source: Investopedia

New Algorithm Can Help Predict Next ISIS Terror Attack

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alt= armed militant group

Being able to detect the signs that foreshadow terror attacks that could end with a death toll is vital in the battle to prevent these incidents from happening again.

One of the tools that terrorism experts and government agencies are learning to use is sift through social media posts to find clues. Some terror acts have been preceded by posts and online activities promoting the cause of militant groups.

The recent shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub on June 12, for example, is one of those cases; the terrorist, Omar Mateen, turned to Facebook to show his affiliation with the Islamic State beforehand.

In light of the fact that we are witnessing more and more terror acts, a physicist and his team hope to improve the potential of using social media in preventing the next one.

Neil Johnson from the University of Miami has come up with a mathematical model to identify the growth and organizational patterns of the ISIS terrorist group in the online, which may aid governmental agencies in thwarting future attacks.

For the research, the team focused on the social platform VKontake, or VK, and the potential terrorist activities that might take place there. The Russia-based social media website was chosen for the mathematical model because pro-ISIS pages don’t stand a chance on Facebook, which deletes them immediately.

With roughly 350 million users worldwide, VK allows multiple languages, which makes it ideal for ISIS to spread its propaganda among the Russian-speaking population.

The team searched for pro-ISIS posts from mid-2014 to August 2015, scouring through posts in multiple languages that include mentions of activities related to the militant group. Based on what they found, they eventually came up with an equation that unmasked the online habits of Islamic State sympathizers.

According to the paper featured in the journal Science, the groups that are pro-ISIS exhibit predictable behaviors before the attacks. An act of violence is often preceded by a sudden spike in the number of ISIS-supporting aggregates.

Even though they are occasionally deleted by online moderators, pro-ISIS groups manage to survive and sprout in new locations or on new servers. The computer algorithm developed by the University of Miami researchers showed that shutting down small groups can help disable the spread of the ISIS propaganda.
Image Source: Washington Times

Catholics Are Going Green

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Pope Francis

After last year’s Laudato Si speech held by Pope Francis, Catholics are going green. A lot of parishes decided to implement eco-friendly changes in their churches and their homes thanks to the awareness spread by the current Pope.

For example, Kansas’ St. Thomas Parish nominated a green team a short time after the encyclical (a formal papal letter usually sent to all of the Catholic bishops).

This team was busy over the past year. They replaced the church’s lighting with eco-friendly LED lighting, installed state of the art solar panels on the school and the church, and invested in sturdy recycle bins that were placed in all of the town’s meeting spaces.

For June 12th, the green team was planning to treat the parishioners with coffee (served in biodegradable cups, of course), doughnuts, and a video featuring Pope Francis, which is entitled “Care for Creation.”

The video in question tackles the subject of climate change and how humans should protect the planet that God offered them.

Furthermore, the team that organized the event gave a couple of sturdy advice for the parishioners that attended last Sunday’s mass.

The men and women were advised to:

  • Explore nature more by taking longer walks in the parks and
  • Study the encyclical and discuss some of the passages that they don’t understand with their family or friends.
  • Try and reduce the waste of food. If food in the fridge is starting to show signs that it’s going to spoil, people can always cook it and take it to a shelter where others need it.
  • Donating to Water.org, an organization that makes sure that everybody gets a drink of clean water, daily.
  • Walking, taking the bus or carpooling. The environment is in dire need of less automobile pollution.

Catholics are going green at the advice of Pope Francis. Besides the fact that they are doing everything in their power to protect the planet, they are also more invested in helping others.

“We are making sure the moral imperative that Pope Francis talks about in terms of the impact of climate change on the poor is one of the things that we’re focused on,” declared Jody Craig, one of the green team members.

We would love to hear your opinion on climate change and the advice of Pope Francis. Please let us know in the section below.

Image source: Wikipedia

Samsung Pay Comes to Australian Users

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alt= Samsung Pay Australia

In the not so faraway future, wallets will become useless. In fact, if Samsung’s plan succeeds, you won’t need anything else when you leave the house but its Galaxy smartphone.

The famous Korean company has just launched Samsung Pay in Australia, bringing the contactless mobile payment platform Down Under by partnering with American Express and Citibank.

It means that starting today, Australians who own an Amex- or Citibank-issued card will be able to tap and pay at contactless terminals with their Samsung smartphone. However, the company mentioned the mobile payment method does not apply to Amex/Citibank branded cards from other banks.

After the US, Korea, China, and Spain, Australia has become the fifth major market where Samsung Pay has been launched. Any smartphone running Android 6.0 Marshmallow and above is compatible with the payment technology.

A simple swipe to pay interface makes Samsung Pay as easy as using a card, if not easier. But more than being simple to use, the tech is also very secure.

First, swipe up from the home screen to open payments; choose your card; hold your finger on the home button to verify fingerprint; and tap smartphone to a contactless terminal. The company assured its users that card details aren’t shared with retailers and other merchants.

Samsung is not the first to offer contactless payments in Australia; Apple Pay stole the show by launching alongside American Express in October 2015. By April, ANZ was brought into the fold in April, as well as several Australian banks, such as Commonwealth Bank.

But even though it might be a little late to the game, Samsung is more than eager to offer better deals. For example, it promised merchants and financial institutions that the company won’t take a “clip” of interchange fees (like Apple does).

The long-term goal of bringing Samsung Pay to more countries is that of getting more Samsung devices in the hands of more shoppers and smartphone users. As Elle Kim said, the global Vice President of Samsung Pay, “Everyone is so used to tapping and paying with their cards, we have to do more with their phones.”

Therefore, Samsung wants its payment platform to work anywhere. And while the Korean company is keen to work with banks, there might be some financial partners involved in the future.
Image Source: Let’s Talk Payments

Experts Discourage Antidepressant Use In Children and Teenagers

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alt= depressed young teenager

Not only is it ineffective to recommend antidepressant use for children and teenagers, but according to a new study, it can also be dangerous.

A team of researchers at the University of Oxford, England, analyzed the effects of 14 antidepressants and discovered that only fluoxetine (the active ingredient in Prozac) proved to be more effective in treating depression than the placebo given to children and teens in several studies.

On the other hand, Venlafaxine (Effexor) was associated with an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and overall suicidal attempts compared to the inactive placebo and five other antidepressants that were evaluated.

Dr. Andrea Cipriani, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University and the lead study author, said, “In the clinical care of young people with a major depressive disorder, clinical guidelines recommend psychotherapy – especially cognitive behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy – as the first-line treatment.”

Cipriani’s team reviewed 34 studies that had enrolled more than 5,200 children and adolescents. Prozac was the only one to show greater benefits to the participants when compared to risks regarding the relief of symptoms and side effects.

The antidepressants duloxetine (Cymbalta), Effexor, and imipramine (Tofranil) had the worst side effects, leading to more patients stopping the treatment compared to those on placebos.

Cipriani warned that “Prozac should be considered only for patients who do not have access to psychotherapy or have not responded to non-pharmacological interventions.”

At the same time, if children or adolescents do take antidepressant drugs, they should be closely monitored, especially at the beginning of treatment.

The main problem with treating children and teens with antidepressants is that we still don’t know many of the potential risks due to the fact that there are a limited number of studies on the matter.

It is also noteworthy that at least 65 percent of the trials reviewed in Cipriani’s study were financially supported by drug companies, which means they have a 90 percent risk of being biased in favor of medication.

However, even though depression treatment usually begins with psychotherapy, some cases are so desperate that Prozac might actually be a better option. In those cases, “something that’s highly imperfect may seem like the right move,” said Dr. Jon Jureidini, author of an editorial accompanying the study.
Image Source: The Star

Snapchat Redesigns Discover and Live Stories Sections

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alt=Snapchat Discover channels

Old design (on the left) vs new design (on the right)

Snapchat has the best of all worlds – including social networks, magazines, and television – all in one need and redesigned package.

The omni-entertainment app wants to highlight the Discover channels and the Live stories included on the Stories page, so it released an update. Many users ignore this section of Snapchat, but thanks to the new features, more eyes will check out the content and help increase publisher’s traffic.

If you have the latest version of Snapchat, you will see headline and image previews of the content where the Discover and Live sections were, instead of just the publishers’ logos or the events they capture.

Swiping right to the Discover page now shows a Pinterest-style grid of tiles, while the Stories page has turned into one scrollable row of content from non-friends.

Also, you no longer have to search for your favorite Discover channels through the whole list; if you tap-and-hold, you can subscribe to them so they move over to Recent Stories. You will always see their new stories next to other accounts you’ve added unless you want to unsubscribe later.

The update represents a new call to action to publishers to invest in their Discover channels and marketing. Snapchat’s goal is to make community-curated and professionally-made content just as appealing to users as what their friends share on the app.

Compared to the Stories you see from friends – who are fascinating because of their flaws and imperfectness – Discover channels seemed rather locked in and overly polished. Before the dynamic previews, the buttons for different publishers looked the same each day and weren’t very attractive.

The changes to the Discover page were previously reported by VentureBeat and Recode. Now, publishers should be more interested in building their Snapchat channels, because the business has just turned more lucrative.

Even though fixed channel buttons might have reduced production costs and rent space in Snapchat, eye-catching peeks are worth the while. They nudge users to look at what’s inside, making them more willing to watch the combination of text articles, videos, images, and ads.

Since the ad revenue is split between Snapchat and publishers inside the Discover section, the company stands to earn money from driving them more viewership.
Image Source: Design Trend

Honking Not Limited to Human Drivers, Google Says

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alt= woman honking

Just imagine this: You’re stuck in bad traffic, and some driver behind you lost its cool and is now supporting its palm on the honk even though there’s clearly nowhere to go.

You turn around to say something, but you realize there’s no one behind the wheel – the car is being annoying autonomously! With a little bit of luck, this scenario won’t happen anytime soon.

However, Google has announced the groundwork for autonomous honking is already here, as the self-driving fleet of cars has started learning how and when to honk.

The news was first spotted Business Insider in Google’s Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report, which unveiled new data from May. In the report, Google explained that there’s no need to worry about impolite and annoying self-honking cars – in theory at least.

Apparently, the company is teaching its vehicles to be polite and considerate. “Our self-driving software is designed to recognize when honking may help alert other drivers to our presence — for example when a driver begins swerving into our lane or backing out of a blind driveway,” the report stated.

To make sure the cars won’t be honking unnecessarily, Google is programming the cars’ software to see the difference between actual honk-demanding situations and the often false positives.

During the development phase, Google’s test drivers note down every time the car toots without cause, making sure the error can be eliminated in the next version of the car’s software.

The cars have been taught more than just one type of honks, using a different one depending on the scenario: two short toots are reserved for when a car ahead is slowly reversing back into the self-driving car, but there are also longer honks that call to action in more urgent situations.

Google also released report details about the sound its self-driving cars make. Unlike gasoline-powered cars, electric cars are inherently quiet, so manufacturers had to add a sonic hum that made the car’s presence known to pedestrians and cyclists.

In Google’s own words, the sound is meant to be “friendly and a little futuristic.” Eventually, its self-driving cars will learn to predict how other drivers on the road respond to a situation-specific honk of the horn.
Image Source: AOL

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