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TOKYO — Japan’s “Moon Sniper” craft landed around 55 meters from its target, the country’s space agency said Thursday as it released the first images from the mission.

The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), dubbed the “Moon Sniper” for its pin-point technology, had the goal of touching down within 100 meters of a specific landing spot.

That is much more precise than the usual landing zone of several kilometers.

“SLIM succeeded in a pin-point soft landing … the landing point is confirmed to be 55 meters away from the target point,” space agency JAXA said.

Saturday’s soft lunar landing made Japan the fifth nation to achieve the feat, after the United States, Soviet Union, China and India.

But celebrations were muted because of a problem with the lightweight spacecraft’s solar batteries, which were not generating power.

JAXA decided to switch the craft off with 12% of its power remaining, to allow for a possible recovery when the sun’s angle changes.

“If sunlight hits the moon from the west in the future, we believe there’s a possibility of power generation, and we’re currently preparing for restoration,” JAXA said earlier this week.

Before switching SLIM off, mission control was able to download technical and image data from the craft’s descent and the lunar surface.

On Thursday, JAXA published the first color images from the mission, showing the SLIM craft sitting intact at a slight angle on the rocky, gray surface, lunar slopes rising in the distance.

The mission was aiming for a crater where the moon’s mantle, the usually deep inner layer beneath its crust, is believed to be exposed on the surface.

By analyzing the rocks there, JAXA hopes to shed light on the mystery of the moon’s possible water resources, key to building bases there one day as possible stopovers on the way to Mars.

Two probes detached successfully from SLIM on Saturday: one with a transmitter and another designed to trundle around the lunar surface beaming images to Earth.

This shape-shifting mini-rover, slightly bigger than a tennis ball, was co-developed by the firm behind the Transformer toys and took the picture released by JAXA on Thursday.

SLIM is one of several recent lunar missions by governments and private firms, 50 years after the first human moon landing.

But technical problems are rife, and the United States faced two setbacks this month in its ambitious moon programs.

Two previous Japanese lunar missions, one public and one private, have also failed.

In 2022, the country unsuccessfully sent a lunar probe named Omotenashi as part of the United States’ Artemis 1 mission.

In April, Japanese startup ispace tried in vain to become the first private company to land on the Moon, losing communication with its craft after what it described as a “hard landing.”
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BRUSSELS — The European Union on Wednesday unveiled plans to strengthen the bloc’s economic security, including measures to protect sensitive technology from falling into the hands of geopolitical rivals such as China. 

Brussels has bolstered its armory of trade restrictions to tackle what it deems to be risks to European economic security, following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and global trade tensions. 

The fallout from the war in Ukraine hit Europe particularly hard, forcing the bloc to find alternative energy sources. Now, it wants to avoid a similar over-reliance on China, which dominates in green technology production and critical raw materials. 

On Wednesday, EU officials outlined an economic security package containing five initiatives, including toughening rules on the screening of foreign direct investment and launching discussions on coordination around export controls. 

The EU has already proposed new rules that it says are necessary to keep the bloc competitive during the global transition to clean technology and to bring more production to Europe. 

“In this competition, Europe cannot just be the playground for bigger players, we need to be able to play ourselves,” said the EU’s most senior competition official, Margrethe Vestager. 

“By doing what we are proposing to do, we can de-risk our economic interdependencies,” she told reporters in Brussels. 

Wednesday’s package is part of the EU’s focus on de-risking but not decoupling from China, pushed strongly by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. 

“The change in EU-China relations has been the driving force of this embrace of economic security, which is something extremely new for the EU,” said Mathieu Duchatel, director of international studies at the Institut Montaigne think tank. 

“Focus on riskier transactions” 

EU officials also pushed back on claims that the package had been watered down and that some of the initiatives would kick in too late. 

One of the initiatives is to revise the EU’s regulation on screening foreign direct investment, but others recommend further discussions, raising concerns that action could come too late. 

For example, the commission said it wanted to promote further discussions on how to better support research and development of technologies that can be used for civil and defense purposes. 

The EU also wants all member states to establish screening mechanisms, which could later lead to investments being blocked if they are believed to pose a risk. 

“I would not agree that the package is watered down,” the EU’s trade commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, said. 

He later said the EU wanted “to focus on riskier transactions and spend less time and resources on low-risk ones.” 

The negotiations are likely to prove a delicate balancing act for the commission. Investment and export control decisions are up to national governments; therefore, it must avoid overstepping its mark. 
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With the growing concern over greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed for climate change, a Kenyan-Dutch company is introducing electric bikes in sub-Saharan Africa for deliveries in urban areas to help reduce emissions. The transport sector plays a crucial role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the effects of global warming. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Amos Wangwa     
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Paris — Power generated from low-emissions sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear, will be adequate to meet growth in global demand for the next three years, the International Energy Agency said, adding that emissions from the power sector are on the decline.

Following record growth, electricity generation from low-emissions sources will account for almost half of the world’s power by 2026, up from less than 40% in 2023, the IEA said in report on Wednesday.

Renewables are expected to overtake coal by early 2025, accounting for more than a third of total electricity generation, the report said.

Nuclear power is also forecast to reach a record globally as French output continues to recover from lows in 2022, several plants in Japan come back online and new reactors begin operations in markets including China, India, Korea and Europe.

Electricity demand is expected to rise on average by 3.4% from 2024 through 2026 with about 85% of demand growth seen coming from China, India and southeast Asia, after growth eased slightly to 2.2% in 2023, IEA data showed.

Over this period, China is expected to account for the largest share of the global increase in electricity demand in terms of volume, despite a forecast for slower economic growth and a lower reliance on heavy industry, the report said.

Meanwhile, global emissions are expected to decrease by 2.4% in 2024, followed by smaller declines in 2025 and 2026, the report said.

“The decoupling of global electricity demand and emissions would be significant given the energy sector’s increasing electrification, with more consumers using technologies such as electric vehicles and heat pumps,” the report said.

Electricity accounted for 2% more of final energy consumption in 2023 from 2015 levels, though reaching climate goals would require electrification to advance significantly faster in coming years, the IEA said.
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Park City, Utah — An audience member was ejected from a Sundance festival event Tuesday in a spat over artificial intelligence, triggering a walkout that illustrates the divisions the technology has rapidly wrought in the film industry.

AI — a key driver of the recent and devastating Hollywood strikes — has been debated extensively at this year’s indie movie festival in Utah.

Filmmakers have experimented with using the technology as a creative tool, while also cautioning about its potential to erase jobs and stifle human expression and connection.

At a Tuesday screening of “Being (The Digital Griot),” in which audience members were encouraged to approach the screen and discuss issues like racism and the patriarchy with an AI bot, an audience member appeared to shout profanity about AI.

“I’m not here to be cursed out and I’m not going to have my AI child be cursed out either,” responded the film’s creator, artist Rashaad Newsome, refusing to participate in a post-screening Q&A until action was taken.

Festival staff forced the woman who had apparently yelled to leave the auditorium, prompting jeers.

Roughly a quarter of the auditorium walked out in solidarity, with some complaining that debate was being shut down and others insisting the lady expelled had not been the actual culprit.

Sundance organizers told AFP they were “looking into” the incident and “reviewing all available material to determine what happened so that corrective actions can be taken.”

But the incident highlighted long-brewing and sharply escalating tensions triggered by the issue of AI in the film world — something that this year’s Sundance lineup was specifically programmed to address.

‘Scary’

In addition to “Being,” the Sundance indie festival has hosted “Eternal You” and “Love Machina,” two documentaries about loved ones using AI to communicate after death.

Another film, “Eno,” explored musician Brian Eno’s career and creative process, using a “generative engine” to mesh together near-infinite different versions of a film from hundreds of possible scenes.

AI was also addressed on the fiction side by films like “Love Me,” starring Kristen Stewart, which imagined a romance between an AI-powered buoy and a satellite in a post-human world.

“Love Machina” director Peter Sillen told AFP that AI could soon mean that making a film will be a similar process to writing a novel.

“You’re going to be able to have somebody who’s sitting in their room create a masterpiece of filmmaking, probably,” he said. 

 

The idea was “hard and scary” but “interesting,” Sillen said, concluding: “I think you have to be open to it.”

“Eternal You” director Hans Block pointed out that AI is already widely used in movies — indeed, the Adobe software he used to edit the film is “full of AI” and “helped us as a tool a lot.”

“It’s so much more easy to make a film nowadays,” he said.

But Block said that while AI can help as a tool, it is important to debate what harm could be caused if the technology is not regulated.

“That’s why we are so happy to present the film right now, because it’s a perfect time to open the debate about these discussions,” he said. 

‘Human touch’

The danger that AI could replace screenwriters, actors and other professions was a key sticking point in last year’s Hollywood strikes, with unions holding out for guarantees from studios that they would not be replaced.

The encroachment of AI has sparked resolutely negative reactions from many filmmakers at Sundance.

Anirban Dutta, co-director of “Nocturnes,” an experiential documentary about scientists studying moths in the eastern Himalayas, said his movie is “a response to what’s happening to this world where all our human instincts are being mechanized.”

“Our film is a love letter to invite people to come back to what we are losing… human touch,” he said.

The woman who was thrown out of the “Being” screening, who has not been identified, was making a similar point before chaos erupted.

“As interesting as this (film) is… all of the knowledge it has comes from people,” she said.
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ABUJA, NIGERIA — Nigeria’s tech startups are facing reluctance from investors, stemming from the shutdown of some prominent young companies last year.

Kingsley Eze co-runs Nairaxi, an e-Commerce, on-demand logistics startup in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. Despite its record of handling tens of thousands of successful requests, the firm has been largely funded by Eze, as well as family and friends.

Eze told VOA that even though he is ready for expansion, it has been difficult to secure financing amid the tales of failing startups in the country.

“It’s been very difficult to raise funds. Investors are cautious, the interest rate hikes in the Western economy is also a contributing factor to that, coupled with a lot of disappointing or not-so-good outings for a few startups that were like a beacon of hope for the Nigerian startup ecosystem,” said Eze.

Nigeria has been leading growth in African startups. Nevertheless, the sector faced a significant blow in 2023. Prominent startups such as 54Gene, Lazerpay, Vibra, Payday and Hytch went out of business — largely over their inability to raise more capital to keep the companies running — losing more than $70 million of foreign investors’ funds.

Abuja-based economist and investment expert Paul Alaje told VOA he blames the collapses on neglect of business principles.

“Assumption is the major bane to startup development in Africa, especially Nigeria,” said Alaje. “That the idea worked at first and is technology-driven does not mean the fundamentals of traditional business or a growing business, economic principles behind traditional business, should be neglected when it comes to startups.”

A recent report by Briter Bridges, a London-based business intelligence and research firm, showed a 54% drop in funding for startups between January and October of last year in Africa compared to the same period in 2022.

Eze said he believes this will make it even harder to navigate the funding terrain.

“The last statistics we had projected a 60% failure rate for Nigerian startup companies which is not a good bet for most investors,” said Eze. “When everyone is succeeding in the market, it encourages more investors.”

Alaje said Nigeria’s business ecosystem needs an overhaul.

“Change policy, bring new policies that make it difficult for people who don’t have an idea regarding how business should be properly run,” said Alaje. “Two, show examples of people who got it correctly, including Paystack. We need to become more deliberate at all levels.”

Paystack, a successful Nigerian payment processing company, was acquired by an Irish-American company for $200 million in 2020.

According to venture capitalists in Nigeria, poor infrastructure, lack of accountability by business owners, and the foreign exchange crisis aided the collapse of many startups.

For his part, Eze said he will continue to build his business from the revenues it generates.
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Washington — Artificial intelligence represents a mixed blessing for the legal field, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said in a year-end report published Sunday, urging “caution and humility” as the evolving technology transforms how judges and lawyers go about their work.

Roberts struck an ambivalent tone in his 13-page report. He said AI had potential to increase access to justice for indigent litigants, revolutionize legal research and assist courts in resolving cases more quickly and cheaply while also pointing to privacy concerns and the current technology’s inability to replicate human discretion.

“I predict that human judges will be around for a while,” Roberts wrote. “But with equal confidence I predict that judicial work – particularly at the trial level – will be significantly affected by AI.”

The chief justice’s commentary is his most significant discussion to date of the influence of AI on the law — and coincides with several lower courts contending with how best to adapt to a new technology capable of passing the bar exam but also prone to generating fictitious content, known as “hallucinations.”

Roberts emphasized that “any use of AI requires caution and humility.” He mentioned an instance where AI hallucinations had led lawyers to cite nonexistent cases in court papers, which the chief justice said is “always a bad idea.” Roberts did not elaborate beyond saying the phenomenon “made headlines this year.”  

For instance, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former fixer and lawyer, said in court papers unsealed last week that he mistakenly gave his attorney fake case citations generated by an AI program that made their way into an official court filing. Other instances of lawyers including AI-hallucinated cases in legal briefs have also been documented.  

A federal appeals court in New Orleans last month drew headlines by unveiling what appeared to be the first proposed rule by any of the 13 U.S. appeals courts aimed at regulating the use of generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT by lawyers appearing before it.

The proposed rule by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would require lawyers to certify that they either did not rely on artificial intelligence programs to draft briefs or that humans reviewed the accuracy of any text generated by AI in their court filings.
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san francisco, california — Google has agreed to settle a consumer privacy lawsuit seeking at least $5 billion in damages over allegations it tracked the data of users who thought they were browsing the internet privately. 

The object of the lawsuit was the “incognito mode” on Google’s Chrome browser that the plaintiffs said gave users a false sense that what they were surfing online was not being tracked by the Silicon Valley tech firm. 

But internal Google emails brought forward in the lawsuit demonstrated that users using incognito mode were being followed by the search and advertising behemoth for measuring web traffic and selling ads. 

In a court filing, the judge confirmed that lawyers for Google reached a preliminary agreement to settle the class action lawsuit, originally filed in 2020, which claimed that “millions of individuals” had likely been affected.  

Lawyers for the plaintiffs were seeking at least $5,000 for each user it said had been tracked by the firm’s Google Analytics or Ad Manager services even when in the private browsing mode and not logged into their Google account. 

This would have amounted to at least $5 billion, though the settlement amount will likely not reach that figure, and no amount was given for the preliminary settlement between the parties.  

Google and lawyers for the consumers did not respond to an AFP request for comment. 

The settlement came just weeks after Google was denied a request that the case be decided by a judge. A jury trial was set to begin next year. 

The lawsuit, filed in a California court, claimed Google’s practices had infringed on users’ privacy by intentionally deceiving them with the incognito option.  

The original complaint alleged that Google and its employees had been given the “power to learn intimate details about individuals’ lives, interests, and internet usage.” 

“Google has made itself an unaccountable trove of information so detailed and expansive that George Orwell could never have dreamed it,” it added.  

A formal settlement is expected for court approval by February 24, 2024. 

Class action lawsuits have become the main venue to challenge big tech companies on data privacy matters in the United States, which lacks a comprehensive law on the handling of personal data. 

In August, Google paid $23 million to settle a long-running case over giving third-parties access to user search data. 

In 2022, Facebook parent company Meta settled a similar case, agreeing to pay $725 million over the handling of user data. 
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NEW YORK — The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft on Wednesday, accusing them of using millions of the newspaper’s articles without permission to help train artificial intelligence technologies. 

The Times said it is the first major U.S. media organization to sue OpenAI and Microsoft, which created ChatGPT and other AI platforms, over copyright issues. 

“Defendants seek to free-ride on The Times’s massive investment in its journalism by using it to build substitutive products without permission or payment,” according to the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court. 

The Times is not seeking a specific amount of damages but said it believes OpenAI and Microsoft have caused “billions of dollars” in damages for illegally copying and using its works. 

OpenAI and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Jerusalem — Israel’s government agreed to give Intel a $3.2 billion grant for a new $25 billion chip plant it plans to build in southern Israel, both sides said on Tuesday, in what is the largest investment ever by a company in Israel. 

The news comes as Israel remains locked in a war with Palestinian militant group Hamas in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. It also is a big show of support by a major U.S. company and a substantial offer by Israel’s government at a time when Washington has increased pressure on Israel to take further steps to minimize civilian harm in Gaza. 

Shares of Intel, which has a bit less than 10% of its global workforce in Israel, opened up 2.73% at $49.28 on the Nasdaq stock exchange.  

The expansion plan for its Kiryat Gat site, where it has an existing chip plant 42 kilometers (26 miles) from Hamas-controlled Gaza, is an “important part of Intel’s efforts to foster a more resilient global supply chain, alongside the company’s ongoing and planned manufacturing investments in Europe and the United States,” Intel said in a statement. 

Under CEO Pat Gelsinger, Intel has invested billions in building factories across three continents to restore its dominance in chip-making and better compete with rivals AMD, Nvidia and Samsung. The new Israeli plant is the latest investment by the U.S. chipmaker in recent years. 

“Support from the Israel government will … ensure that Israel remains a global center of semiconductor technology and talent,” Intel vice president Daniel Benatar said. 

Intel had previously received around $2 billion over the past 50 years in Israeli grants in other facilities there. 

Ofir Yosefi, deputy director general of Israel’s Investments Authority, said Intel chose a higher grant and tax rate over an offer for a lower grant and lower tax rate. 

He told Reuters the process took months since a grant of such magnitude needed a review and independent analysis that it was economically viable. It was determined Israel would reap much higher fiscal and economic benefits, he added. 

“This investment, at a time when Israel wages war against utter wickedness, a war in which good must defeat evil, is an investment in the right and righteous values that spell progress for humanity,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said. 

Intel, whose investment will be over five years, will pay a corporate tax rate of 7.5% instead of 5% previously. The normal tax rate is 23%, but under Israel’s law to encourage investment in development areas, companies receive large benefits. 

In Germany, Intel plans to spend more than $33 billion to develop two chip-making plants in Magdeburg, as part of a multibillion-dollar investment drive across Europe to build chip capacity. Berlin has pledged big subsidies to attract Germany’s biggest-ever foreign investment.  

In 2022, Intel said it would invest up to $100 billion to build potentially the world’s largest chip-making complex in the U.S. state of Ohio, and rivals Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, also have announced big investment plans in the U.S. 

In addition to the grant that amounts to 12.8% of the total investment, the chipmaker also committed to buy $16.6 billion worth of goods and services from Israeli suppliers over the next decade, while the new facility is expected to create several thousand jobs. 

Intel, one of around 500 multinationals in Israel, established a presence there in 1974 and now operates four development and production sites, including its manufacturing plant in Kiryat Gat called Fab 28 that produces Intel 7 technology, or 10 nanometer chips, and employs nearly 12,000 people in the country while indirectly employing 42,000 more. 

At some $9 billion, Intel’s exports account for 5.5% of total high-tech exports. The Centrino chip, which enables the use of WiFi, and its Core processors were developed in Israel. 

Intel, which bought Israeli self-driving auto technologies firm Mobileye for $15.3 billion in 2017, declined to say what technology will be produced at the new Fab 38 plant. Intel says construction has already begun.  

In June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Intel would build a new $25 billion chip plant in Israel, but Intel until now had declined to confirm the investment. 

The Fab 38 plant is due to open in 2028 and operate through 2035. 
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Washington — A U.S. import ban on certain Apple smartwatch models came into effect Tuesday, after the Biden administration opted not to veto a ruling on patent infringements.

The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) decided in October to ban Apple Watch models over a patented technology for detecting blood-oxygen levels.

Apple contends that the ITC finding was in error and should be reversed, but last week paused its US sales of Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2.

The order stemmed from a complaint made to the commission in mid-2021 accusing Apple of infringing on medical device maker company Masimo Corp’s “light-based oximetry functionality.”

“After careful consultations, Ambassador (Katherine) Tai decided not to reverse the… determination and the ITC’s decision became final on December 26, 2023,” the president’s executive office said in a statement on Tuesday.

Apple has been steadily ramping up fitness and health features with each generation of its Apple Watch, which dominates the smartwatch category.

In September, Apple released its Apple Watch Series 9, touting increased performance along with features such as the ability to access and log health data.

“Our teams work tirelessly to create products and services that empower users with industry-leading health, wellness and safety features,” Apple said when the ITC ban was issued.

“Masimo has wrongly attempted to use the ITC to keep a potentially lifesaving product from millions of US consumers while making way for their own watch that copies Apple.”

In May, a trial of Masimo’s allegations ended in a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

Late last year, Apple filed two patent infringement lawsuits accusing Masimo of copying Apple Watch technology.
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For water managers in drought-stricken regions, accurate forecasts of water availability are critically important. Matt Dibble shows how remote sensing technology is helping in the Rocky Mountains in this edition of LogOn.
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Paris — Even as human-caused climate change threatens the environment, nature continues to inspire our technological advancement.

“The solutions that are provided by nature have evolved for billions of years and tested repeatedly every day since the beginning of time,” said Evripidis Gkanias, a University of Edinburgh researcher. 

Gkanias has a special interest in how nature can educate artificial intelligence.

“Human creativity might be fascinating, but it cannot reach nature’s robustness — and engineers know that,” he told AFP.

From compasses mimicking insect eyes to forest fire-fighting robots that behave like vines, here’s a selection of this year’s nature-based technology.

Insect compass

Some insects — such as ants and bees — navigate visually based on the intensity and polarisation of sunlight, thus using the sun’s position as a reference point. 

Researchers replicated their eye structure to construct a compass capable of estimating the sun’s location in the sky, even on cloudy days.

Common compasses rely on Earth’s weak magnetic field to navigate, which is easily disturbed by noise from electronics.

A prototype of the light-detecting compass is “already working great,” said Gkanias, who led the study published in Communications Engineering. 

“With the appropriate funding, this could easily be transformed into a more compact and lightweight product” freely available, he added. 

And with a little further tweaking, the insect compass could work on any planet where a big celestial light source is visible.

Water-collecting webs

Fabric inspired by the silky threads of a spider web and capable of collecting drinking water from morning mist could soon play an important role in regions suffering water scarcity.

The artificial threads draw from the feather-legged spider, whose intricate “spindle-knots” allow large water droplets to move and collect on its web.

Once the material can be mass produced, the water harvested could reach a “considerable scale for real application”, Yongmei Zheng, a co-author of the study published in Advanced Functional Materials, told AFP.

Fire-fighting vines 

Animals aren’t the only source of inspiration from nature.

Scientists have created an inflatable robot that “grows” in the direction of light or heat, in the same way vines creep up a wall or across a forest floor. 

The roughly two-meter-long tubular robot can steer itself using fluid-filled pouches rather than costly electronics.  

In time, these robots could find hot spots and deliver fire suppression agents, say researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara.   

“These robots are slow, but that is OK for fighting smoldering fires, such as peat fires, which can be a major source of carbon emissions,” co-author Charles Xiao told AFP. 

But before the robots can climb the terrain, they need to be more heat-resistant and agile.

Kombucha circuits

Scientists at the Unconventional Computing Laboratory at the University of the West of England in Bristol have found a way to use slimy kombucha mats — produced by yeast and bacteria during the fermenting of the popular tea-based drink — to create “kombucha electronics.”

The scientists printed electrical circuits onto dried mats that were capable of illuminating small LED lights.   

Dry kombucha mats share properties of textiles or even leather. But they are sustainable and biodegradable, and can even be immersed in water for days without being destroyed, said the authors.

“Kombucha wearables could potentially incorporate sensors and electronics within the material itself, providing a seamless and unobtrusive integration of technology with the human body,” such as for heart monitors or step-trackers, lead author Andrew Adamatzky and the laboratory’s director, told AFP.

The mats are lighter, cheaper and more flexible than plastic, but the authors caution that durability and mass production remain significant obstacles.

Scaly robots

Pangolins resemble a cross between a pine cone and an anteater. The soft-bodied mammals, covered in reptilian scales, are known to curl up in a ball to protect themselves against predators. 

Now, a tiny robot might adapt that same design for potentially life-saving work, according to a study published in Nature Communications.

It is intended to roll through our digestive tracts before unfurling and delivering medicine or stopping internal bleeding in hard-to-reach parts of the human body. 

Lead author Ren Hao Soon of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems was watching a YouTube video when he “stumbled across the animal and saw it was a good fit.”

Soon needed a soft material that wouldn’t cause harm inside the human body, with the advantages of a hard material that could, for example, conduct electricity. The Pangolin’s unique structure was perfect.

The tiny robots are still in their initial stages, but they could be made for as little as 10 euros each. 

“Looking to nature to solve these kinds of problems is natural,” said Soon. 

“Every single design part of an animal serves a particular function. It’s very elegant.”

 
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HERZLIYA, Israel — Nearly 7,000 miles away in Portland, Oregon, venture capitalist George Djuric said he was compelled to visit Israel during the country’s war with Palestinian militant group Hamas and to pledge support for the high-tech sector.

Djuric, chief technology officer at yVentures who arrived in the United States as a 3-year-old refugee from Bosnia during the Bosnian war in the mid-1990s, this week joined some 70 other U.S. tech executives and investors on a trip to Israel.

“Coming here is a chance to stand in solidarity with Israel and also support the tech ecosystem, which is the world’s second largest after Silicon Valley,” he said. “As a technology fund, it makes sense for us to be here.”

Although not Jewish, Djuric said he was drawn to Israel by the state’s resiliency and as someone whose family’s views were shaped by war.

“I was horrified by what happened on October 7 and I was equally horrified the next day when I saw people demonstrating in support of what happened,” he said, referring to the October 7 attack on Israel launched by Hamas.

Investors and analysts had predicted the conflict with the Palestinians would derail a fragile recovery in high-tech, which accounts for more than half of Israel’s exports and nearly a fifth of its overall economic output.

Funding had already dropped sharply amid a global slowdown and a divisive government judicial overhaul when the war took its toll on the economy. Growth, on pace for a 3.4% clip this year, has fallen to an expected 2% with the outlook at least as grim.

At least 15% of the tech workforce has been called up for military reserve duty.

Yet, even as the war rages, tech funding deals are still getting done, albeit at a slower pace. Startups have raised more than $6 billion in 2023 compared with $16 billion in 2022.

On Tuesday, ScaleOps, a startup specializing in cloud resource management, announced a $21.5 million funding round. Last week, cyber startup Zero Networks, which prevents attackers from spreading in corporate networks, raised $20 million.

‘Long-term bullish on Israel’

Ron Miasnik, of Bain Capital Ventures who co-organized the delegation, said he had expected Israeli startups to go on drawing large sums. He said he believed the country’s economy would ultimately bounce back.

“It doesn’t matter to us whether the economic rebound takes three months, six months, nine months or 12 months,” he said. “We’re long-term bullish on Israel.”

Miasnik said the idea of the trip emerged from watching other solidarity groups, such as religious ones. “We felt the (U.S.) tech and the venture capital community, which is so heavily integrated within Israel, was missing,” he said.

Initially, it was supposed to be just 15 people but, he said, hundreds of people showed interest. They included CEOs and senior executives of U.S.-based tech and VC funds from Meetup.com, Apollo, TPG, Susquehanna Growth Equity, Mastercard, John Deere and Harvard University’s endowment investment fund.

In addition to meeting local investors and startups, they met Israeli leaders and families of hostages still held captive in Gaza and toured border towns hit by the October 7 attack.

Bain has a number of investments in Israel, including Redis Labs, in which the fund has invested more than $100 million, and cybersecurity firm Armis, and Miasnik said he was seeking to add more Israeli cybersecurity startups to its portfolio.

Similarly, Danny Schultz, managing director of New York-based Gotham Ventures said he was looking to invest in 10 to 20 Israeli growth stage startups, mainly in fintech, in the next three to five years.

“At the point that Israeli CEOs need more capital, they also need relationships across the ocean in the U.S. and Europe to really help build their companies,” he said.

Joy Marcus co-founded a new VC fund called The 98 and only invests in “women-led technology businesses that are disrupting industry.”

“I am tortured by the war. … So I am here to support Israel first and foremost,” she said. “And I am also very interested in investing in some Israeli women.”
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NEW YORK — Artists under siege by artificial intelligence that studies their work and then replicates their styles, have teamed with university researchers to stymie such copycat activity.

U.S. illustrator Paloma McClain went into defense mode after learning that several AI models had been trained using her art, with no credit or compensation sent her way.

“It bothered me,” McClain told AFP.

“I believe truly meaningful technological advancement is done ethically and elevates all people instead of functioning at the expense of others,” she said.

The artist turned to free software called Glaze created by researchers at the University of Chicago.

Glaze essentially outthinks AI models when it comes to how they train, tweaking pixels in ways that are indiscernible to human viewers but which make a digitized piece of art appear dramatically different to AI.

“We’re basically providing technical tools to help protect human creators against invasive and abusive AI models,” said Ben Zhao, a professor of computer science on the Glaze team.

Created in just four months, Glaze spun off technology used to disrupt facial recognition systems.

“We were working at super-fast speed because we knew the problem was serious,” Zhao said of rushing to defend artists from software imitators. “A lot of people were in pain.”

Generative AI giants have agreements to use data for training in some cases, but the majority of digital images, audio, and text used to shape the way supersmart software thinks has been scraped from the internet without explicit consent.

Since its release in March, Glaze has been downloaded more than 1.6 million times, according to Zhao.

Zhao’s team is working on a Glaze enhancement called Nightshade that notches up defenses by confusing AI, say by getting it to interpret a dog as a cat.

“I believe Nightshade will have a noticeable effect if enough artists use it and put enough poisoned images into the wild,” McClain said, meaning they would be easily available online.

“According to Nightshade’s research, it wouldn’t take as many poisoned images as one might think,” she said.

Zhao’s team has been approached by several companies that want to use Nightshade, according to the Chicago academic.

“The goal is for people to be able to protect their content, whether it’s individual artists or companies with a lot of intellectual property,” Zhao said.

Viva Voce

A startup called Spawning has developed Kudurru software that detects attempts to harvest large numbers of images from an online venue.

An artist can then block access or send images that don’t match what is being requested, tainting the pool of data being used to teach AI what is what, according to Spawning co-founder Jordan Meyer.

More than 1,000 websites have been integrated into the Kudurru network.

Spawning has also launched haveibeentrained.com, a website that features an online tool for finding out whether digitized works have been fed into an AI model and allow artists to opt out of such use in the future.

As defenses ramp up for images, researchers at Washington University in Missouri have developed AntiFake software to thwart AI copying voices.

AntiFake enriches digital recordings of people speaking, adding noises inaudible to people but which make it “impossible to synthesize a human voice,” said Zhiyuan Yu, the Ph.D. student behind the project.

The program aims to go beyond just stopping unauthorized training of AI to preventing the creation of “deepfakes” — bogus soundtracks or videos of celebrities, politicians, relatives, or others showing them doing or saying something they didn’t.

A popular podcast recently reached out to the AntiFake team for help stopping its productions from being hijacked, according to Zhiyuan Yu.

The freely available software has so far been used for recordings of people speaking, but could also be applied to songs, the researcher said.

“The best solution would be a world in which all data used for AI is subject to consent and payment,” Meyer contended. “We hope to push developers in this direction.”
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MOSCOW — The head of a company that makes navigation systems for Russia’s space program was arrested in Moscow and charged with major fraud, state media reported Friday.

TASS news agency quoted an unidentified law enforcement official as saying that Yevgeny Fomichev had been interrogated and charged with large-scale fraud, which carries a prison term of up to 10 years and a fine of 1 million rubles ($10,972).

TASS said Moscow’s Basmanny District Court, which often handles high-profile cases, ordered Fomichev to be held in pretrial detention until Feb. 21 at the request of Russia’s Investigative Committee, which deals with serious crimes.

Fomichev is head of NPP Geophysics-Cosmos, a company whose website says it manufactures “optical electronic orientation and navigation devices for spacecraft.” It says that almost all Russian spacecraft use its equipment.

The website includes a nine-page anti-corruption policy that says management has a key role in creating a culture of zero-tolerance toward corruption.

Russia’s space program suffered a huge setback in August when its Luna-25 spacecraft smashed into the surface of the moon while attempting to land there.

An investigation blamed a malfunction in an onboard control unit for the failure of Russia’s first moon mission in 47 years.
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washington — The U.S. Department of Commerce said Thursday that it would launch a survey of the U.S. semiconductor supply chain and national defense industrial base to address national security concerns from Chinese-sourced chips. 

The survey aims to identify how U.S. companies are sourcing so-called legacy chips — current-generation and mature-node semiconductors — as the department moves to award nearly $40 billion in subsidies for semiconductor chip manufacturing. 

The department said the survey, which will begin in January, aims to “reduce national security risks posed by” China and will focus on the use and sourcing of Chinese-manufactured legacy chips in the supply chains of critical U.S. industries. 

A report released by the department on Thursday said China had provided the Chinese semiconductor industry with an estimated $150 billion in subsidies in the last decade, creating “an unlevel global playing field for U.S. and other foreign competitors.” 

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said, “Over the last few years, we’ve seen potential signs of concerning practices from [China] to expand their firms’ legacy chip production and make it harder for U.S. companies to compete.” 

China’s embassy in Washington said Thursday that the United States “has been stretching the concept of national security, abusing export control measures, engaging in discriminatory and unfair treatment against enterprises of other countries, and politicizing and weaponizing economic and sci-tech issues.” 

Raimondo said last week that she expected her department to make about a dozen semiconductor chip funding awards within the next year, including multibillion-dollar announcements that could drastically reshape U.S. chip production. Her department made the first award from the program on December 11. 

The Commerce Department said the survey would also help promote a level playing field for legacy chip production. 

“Addressing non-market actions by foreign governments that threaten the U.S. legacy chip supply chain is a matter of national security,” Raimondo added. 

U.S.-headquartered companies account for about half of the global semiconductor revenue but face intense competition supported by foreign subsidies, the department said. 

Its report said the cost of manufacturing semiconductors in the United States may be “30-45% higher than the rest of the world,” and it called for long-term support for domestic fabrication construction. 

It added that the U.S. should enact “permanent provisions that incentivize steady construction and modernization of semiconductor fabrication facilities, such as the investment tax credit scheduled to end in 2027.” 
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From ChatGPT to the impacts of machine learning on the music and film industry, academia and politics, generative artificial intelligence dominated technology news in 2023. Deana Mitchell takes a look.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — An international astronaut will join U.S. astronauts on the moon by decade’s end under an agreement announced Wednesday by NASA and the White House.

The news came as Vice President Kamala Harris convened a meeting in Washington of the National Space Council, the third such gathering under the Biden administration.

There was no mention of who the international moonwalker might be or even what country would be represented. A NASA spokeswoman later said that crews would be assigned closer to the lunar-landing missions, and that no commitments had yet been made to another country.

NASA has included international astronauts on trips to space for decades. Canadian Jeremy Hansen will fly around the moon a year or so from now with three U.S. astronauts.

Another crew would actually land; it would be the first lunar touchdown by astronauts in more than a half-century. That’s not likely to occur before 2027, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

All 12 moonwalkers during NASA’s Apollo program of the 1960s and 1970s were U.S. citizens. The space agency’s new moon exploration program is named Artemis after Apollo’s mythological twin sister.

Including international partners “is not only sincerely appreciated, but it is urgently needed in the world today,” Hansen told the council.

NASA has long stressed the need for global cooperation in space, establishing the Artemis Accords along with the U.S. State Department in 2020 to promote responsible behavior not just at the moon but everywhere in space.

Representatives from all 33 countries that have signed the accords so far were expected at the space council’s meeting in Washington.

“We know from experience that collaboration on space delivers,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken, citing the Webb Space Telescope, a U.S., European and Canadian effort.

Notably missing from the Artemis Accords: Russia and China, the only countries besides the U.S. to launch their own citizens into orbit.

Russia is a partner with NASA in the International Space Station, along with Europe, Japan and Canada.

Even earlier in the 1990s, the Russian and U.S. space agencies teamed up during the shuttle program to launch each other’s astronauts to Russia’s former orbiting Mir station.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Harris also announced new policies to ensure the safe use of space as more and more private companies and countries aim skyward.

Among the issues that the U.S. is looking to resolve: the climate crisis and the growing amount of space junk around Earth.

A 2021 anti-satellite missile test by Russia added more than 1,500 pieces of potentially dangerous orbiting debris, and Blinken joined others at the meeting in calling for all nations to end such destructive testing.

 
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TOKYO — Toyota Motor’s Daihatsu unit will halt shipments of all of its vehicles, Japan’s biggest automaker said on Wednesday, after an investigation into a safety scandal found issues at 64 models, including almost two dozen sold under Toyota’s brand.

An independent panel has been investigating Daihatsu after it said in April it had rigged side-collision safety tests carried out for 88,000 small cars, most of those sold as Toyotas.

But the latest revelations suggest the scope of the scandal is far greater than previously thought and could potentially tarnish the automakers’ reputation for quality and safety.

Daihatsu is Toyota’s small-car unit and produces a number of the so-called “kei” smaller cars and trucks that are popular in Japan. The latest issues also impacted some Mazda and Subaru models sold in the domestic market and Toyota and Daihatsu models overseas, the panel found.

 

Toyota said “fundamental reform” was needed to revitalize Daihatsu, as well as a review of certification operations.

“This will be an extremely significant task that cannot be accomplished overnight,” Toyota said in a statement. “It will require not only a review of management and business operations but also a review of the organization and structure.”

Toyota shares were flat on Wednesday afternoon, lagging a 1.6% rise in the broader market.

Daihatsu was found to have cheated on safety tests of almost all models it currently has in production as well as some cars it made in the past, the Asahi newspaper previously reported.

The issue emerged after Daihatsu said in April it had discovered the wrongly conducted tests after a whistleblower report. It had reported the issue to regulatory agencies and halted shipments of affected models. 

The following month, it said it had stopped sales of the Toyota Raize hybrid electric vehicle and its own Rocky model after also finding problems with testing for those models.

Daihatsu produced 1.1 million vehicles over the first 10 months of the year, nearly 40% of those at overseas sites, according to Toyota data. It sold some 660,000 vehicles worldwide over that period and accounted for 7% of Toyota’s sales.

Toyota said on Wednesday that affected models included those for the southeast Asian markets of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam and central and South American countries of Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Uruguay.

Daihatsu is the latest safety issue to impact the Toyota group over the years.

An engine data scandal at Toyota’s truck- and bus-making unit, Hino Motors, in 2022 led to resignations and temporary pay cuts for some managers.

In that case Hino admitted to falsifying data on some engines dating back to 2003, or at least a decade earlier than it originally indicated.

In 2010 Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda, then chief executive, was forced to testify before U.S. Congress due to a safety crisis involving faulty accelerators.
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WASHINGTON — Blue Origin launched its first rocket in more than a year on Tuesday, reviving the U.S. company’s fortunes with a successful return to space following an uncrewed crash in 2022.

Though mission NS-24 carried a payload of science experiments, not people, it paves the way for Jeff Bezos’ aerospace enterprise to resume taking wealthy thrill-seekers to the final frontier.

The New Shepard suborbital rocket blasted off from the pad at Launch Site One, near Van Horn, Texas, at 10:42 a.m.

After separating from the booster, the gumdrop-shaped capsule attained a peak altitude of 107 kilometers above sea level, well above the internationally recognized boundary of space known as the Karman line, which is 100 kilometers high.

The booster then successfully landed vertically on the launchpad, against the majestic backdrop of the Sierra Diablo mountains, followed a few minutes later by the capsule floating to the desert floor on three giant parachutes.

All in all, the mission lasted 10 minutes and 13 seconds.

“Demand for New Shepard flights continues to grow, and we’re looking forward to increasing our flight cadence in 2024,” said Phil Joyce, the company’s senior vice president.

The science experiments onboard included one to demonstrate the operation of hydrogen fuel cell technology in microgravity, and another showing how water and gas move in a weightless environment.

Future applications could include monitoring water quality for astronauts in space.

On Sept. 12, 2022, a Blue Origin rocket became engulfed in flames shortly after launch. The capsule, fixed to the top of the rocket, successfully initiated an emergency separation sequence and floated safely to the ground on parachutes.

The accident prompted a year-long probe by the Federal Aviation Administration, which found it was caused by the failure of an engine nozzle that experienced higher-than-expected operating temperatures.

The regulator issued a set of corrective actions for Blue Origin to undertake before it could resume flying, including the redesign of certain engine parts. It confirmed Sunday that it had approved Blue Origin’s application to fly again.

In all, Blue Origin has carried out six crewed flights — some passengers were paying customers and others were guests — since July 2021, when Bezos himself took part in the first.

While Blue Origin has been grounded, rival Virgin Galactic — the company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson — has pressed on, with five commercial flights this year.

The two companies compete in the emerging space tourism sector, operating in suborbital space.

While Blue Origin launches a small rocket vertically, Virgin Galactic uses a large carrier plane to gain altitude and then drop off a smaller, rocket-powered spaceplane that completes the journey to space.

In both cases, passengers enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness and can view the curvature of the Earth through large windows.

Virgin Galactic tickets were sold for between $200,000 to $450,000; Blue Origin does not publicly disclose its ticket prices.

Blue Origin can boast the fact that nearly all of its rocket platform is reused, including the booster, capsule, engine, landing gear and parachutes.

Its engine, meanwhile, is fueled by liquid oxygen and hydrogen, meaning the only byproduct during flight is water vapor, with no carbon emissions.

Blue Origin is also developing a heavy rocket for commercial purposes called New Glenn, with the maiden flight planned for next year.

This rocket, which measures 98 meters high, is designed to carry payloads of as much as 45 metric tons into low Earth orbit.

 
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