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 MICROSOFT AXES CHATBOT THAT LEARNED A LITTLE TOO MUCH ONLINE 06

OCULUS RIFT BEGINS SHIPPING REVIEWS SUGGEST WAITING IS OK 14

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR DATA AND AVOID BEING HACKED 20

A BOLD NEW WORLD FOR BATTERIES 30

HOW TO CLEAN UP YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION 46

2016 RETROSPECTIVE: A YEAR OF APPLE EVOLUTION 52

HEALTH: MEMORIES PAINFUL ON CHERNOBYL’S 30TH ANNIVERSARY 68

HEALTH: NURSING HOMES STARTING TO OFFER MORE INDIVIDUALIZED MENUS 76

STARTUP WANTS TO PUT SELF-DRIVING BIG RIGS ON US HIGHWAYS 86

CHINA’S HUAWEI LOOKS TO BUILD GLOBAL SMARTPHONE BRAND 94

‘THE SIMS’ REMOVES GENDER BARRIERS IN VIDEO GAME 104

SCIENCE: COSMIC CURVEBALL: IS THE UNIVERSE EXPANDING EVEN FASTER? 110

THE STREAMING RACE 116

TECHNOLOGY GIVES UNIQUE VOICES TO THOSE WHO CAN’T SPEAK 128

CYBORG STINGRAY SWIMS TOWARD LIGHT, BREAKS NEW GROUND 134

SCIENCE - DIRECTOR: NEW MEXICO SPACEPORT POSITIONED FOR NEXT FRONTIER 140

CROWDFUNDED CLASSROOMS: TEACHERS INCREASINGLY SOLICIT ONLINE 148

NOTIFICATIONS SENT FOLLOWING FISHING LICENSE DATA BREACH 156

DIESELS TAKE BACK SEAT, ELECTRICS UP FRONT AT PARIS CAR SHOW 160

CALIFORNIA EYES UNUSUAL POWER SOURCE: ITS GRIDLOCKED ROADS 170

PILOTS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS SHIFTING TO TEXT MESSAGING 178

STUDY: EARTH’S ROUGHLY WARMEST IN ABOUT 100,000 YEARS 184

FEDS ACCUSE SILICON VALLEY FIRM OF HIRING BIAS 190

6
 MICROSOFT AXES
CHATBOT THAT
LEARNED A LITTLE
TOO MUCH ONLINE

OMG! Did you hear about the artificial

intelligence program that Microsoft designed
to chat like a teenage girl? It was totally yanked
offline in less than a day, after it began spouting
racist, sexist and otherwise offensive remarks.

Microsoft said it was all the fault of some really

mean people, who launched a “coordinated
effort” to make the chatbot known as Tay
“respond in inappropriate ways.” To which one
artificial intelligence expert responded: Duh!

Well, he didn’t really say that. But computer

scientist Kris Hammond did say, “I can’t believe
they didn’t see this coming.”

7
Microsoft said its researchers created Tay as an
experiment to learn more about computers
and human conversation. On its website, the
company said the program was targeted to
an audience of 18 to 24-year-olds and was
“designed to engage and entertain people
where they connect with each other online
through casual and playful conversation.”

In other words, the program used a lot of slang

and tried to provide humorous responses
when people sent it messages and photos. The
chatbot went live on Wednesday, and Microsoft
invited the public to chat with Tay on Twitter and
some other messaging services popular with
teens and young adults.

“The more you chat with Tay the smarter

she gets, so the experience can be more
personalized for you,” the company said.

But some users found Tay’s responses odd,

and others found it wasn’t hard to nudge Tay
into making offensive comments, apparently
prompted by repeated questions or statements
that contained offensive words. Soon, Tay was
making sympathetic references to Hitler - and
creating a furor on social media.

8
9
“Unfortunately, within the first 24 hours
of coming online, we became aware of a
coordinated effort by some users to abuse
Tay’s commenting skills to have Tay respond in
inappropriate ways,” Microsoft said in a statement.

While the company didn’t elaborate, Hammond

says it appears Microsoft made no effort to
prepare Tay with appropriate responses to
certain words or topics. Tay seems to be a
version of “call and response” technology, added
Hammond, who studies artificial intelligence at
Northwestern University and also serves as chief
scientist for Narrative Science, a company that
develops computer programs that turn data into
narrative reports.

“Everyone keeps saying that Tay learned this or

that it became racist,” Hammond said. “It didn’t.”
The program most likely reflected things it was
told, probably more than once, by people who
decided to see what would happen, he said.

10
Image: Gary He
11
The problem is that Microsoft turned Tay
loose online, where many people consider it
entertaining to stir things up - or worse. The
company should have realized that people
would try a variety of conversational gambits
with Tay, said Caroline Sinders, an expert on
“conversational analytics” who works on chat
robots for another tech company. (She asked not
to identify it because she wasn’t speaking in an
official capacity.) She called Tay “an example of
bad design.”

Instead of building in some guidelines for how

the program would deal with controversial
topics, Sinders added, it appears Tay was mostly
left to learn from whatever it was told.

“This is a really good example of machine

learning,” said Sinders. “It’s learning from input.
That means it needs constant maintenance.”

Sinders said she hopes Microsoft will release the

program again, but only after “doing some work”
on it first.

Microsoft said it’s “making adjustments” on

Tay, but there was no word on when Tay might
be back. Most of the messages on its Twitter
account were deleted by Thursday afternoon.

“c u soon humans need sleep now so many

conversations today thx,” said the latest
remaining post.

12
13
OCULUS RIFT BEGINS SHIPPING
REVIEWS SUGGEST WAITING IS OK

The first consumer-ready Oculus Rift virtual-

reality headset was delivered to a real person
over the weekend, and reviewers got their
first taste. The initial feedback: It’s a beautiful,
wonderful device that immerses you, yet it still
has a ways to go.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey hand-delivered

the first Rift to software developer Ross Martin
in Anchorage, Alaska, on Saturday, kicking off
a new era in virtual reality by putting the most
powerful VR device yet into a consumer’s hands.

Martin, who had never tried VR before, spent

a few hours on the Rift Monday morning. He
watched a short movie, played a game and
explored a virtual environment that included an
up-close encounter with a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

14
15
16
“I couldn’t stop saying, ‘Wow,’” Martin, a 33-year-
old Web developer, said in an interview. But he
said that he felt a touch of nausea at times and
that the resolution could be better.

“If you’re a gamer, this is right up your alley,” he

said. “You’re going to be able to forgive that.”

Oculus has said it’s sending the Rift to its first

Kickstarter backers first, followed by those who
ordered one in January for $600, or at least
$1,500 with a high-end personal computer
included. Oculus, which began crowd-funding
through Kickstarter in August 2012, was
acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014 and
has shipped two developer versions so far.

Expectations for a consumer version have

been high. There’s a backlog of orders and if
you order now, you can expect delivery in July.
It’s not clear, though, how many units Oculus
made for the first round - and whether there will
ultimately be much demand beyond gamers
and hard-core technologists.

Early reviews by journalists have been mixed.

Steven Tweedie of Business Insider was

glowingly positive in his review of the Rift,
relishing the greater presence he felt in both
games and narrative stories.

17
“Everything feels like it means more: there’s a
heightened connection to characters, both in
games and short films, and the action carries
weight,” he wrote.

But he noted its hefty price tag “is undoubtedly

the biggest thing keeping more people from
getting the chance to try virtual reality.”

Time’s Lisa Eadicicco called the Rift “expensive,

complicated, and totally wonderful.” She added,
“It’s brilliant. It’s fascinating. It’s not perfect, but
it’s only getting started.”

Several reviewers, including IGN’s Dan

Stapleton, wrote that because the Rift doesn’t
come with controllers that allow for separate
actions by each hand, the Rift will suffer
compared with the HTC Vive, which will have
such controllers included when it comes
out next month. Oculus expects its “Touch”
controllers to come out later this year.

Wired reviewer Peter Rubin similarly bemoaned

the lack of games using Touch.

Nathan Olivarez-Giles of The Wall Street Journal

wasn’t wowed by all the 30 games that were
available at launch.

And he wrote that nausea, a consistent

complaint among VR headset users, was real.

“When I pushed myself to play ‘Valkyrie’ for as

long as 45 minutes nonstop, I took aspirin to
fight off a headache.”

18
Image: Gary He
19
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR DATA
AND AVOID BEING HACKED

20
The government hack of an iPhone used by a
San Bernardino killer serves as a reminder that
phones and other electronic devices aren’t
impenetrable vaults.

While most people aren’t targets of the NSA, FBI

or a foreign government, hackers are looking to
steal the financial and personal information of
ordinary people. Your phone stores more than
just selfies. Your email account on the phone, for
instance, is a gateway to resetting banking and
other sensitive passwords.

Like washing your hands and brushing your

teeth, a little “cyber hygiene” can go a long way
toward preventing disaster.

21
LOCK YOUR PHONE WITH A PASSCODE
Failing to do so is like leaving your front
door unlocked.

A four-digit passcode - and an accompanying

self-destruct feature that might wipe a phone’s
data after too many wrong guesses - stumped
the FBI for weeks and forced them to bring in
outside help. Using six digits makes a passcode
100 times harder to guess. And if you want to
make it even harder, you can add letters and
other characters to further increase the number
of possible combinations. These are options on
both iPhones and Android.

The iPhone’s self-destruct feature is something

you must turn on in the settings, under Touch
ID & Passcode. Do so, and the phone wipes
itself clean after 10 failed attempts. But the
10 attempts apply to your guesses, too, if
you forget your passcode, or if your kids start
randomly punching in numbers. Android has a
similar feature.

Both systems will also introduce waiting periods

after several wrong guesses to make it tough to
try all combos.

Biometrics, such as fingerprint scanners, can act

as a shortcut and make complex passcodes less
of a pain.

22
USE ENCRYPTION
Much to the FBI’s displeasure, iPhones running
at least iOS 8 offer full-disk encryption by
default. That means that the information stored
on the phone can’t be extracted - by authorities
or by hackers - and read on another computer.
If the phone isn’t unlocked first, any information
obtained would be scrambled and unreadable.

With Android, however, you typically have to

turn that on in the settings. Google’s policy
requires many phones with the latest version
of Android, including its own Nexus phones,
to offer encryption by default. But, according
to Google, only 2.3 percent of active Android
devices currently are running that version.

23
24
 SET UP DEVICE FINDERS
Find My iPhone isn’t just for finding your phone
in the couch cushions.

If your device disappears, you can put it in Lost

Mode. That locks your screen with a passcode,
if it isn’t already, and lets you display a custom
message with a phone number to help you get
it back.

The app comes with iPhones, but you need to

set it up before you lose your phone. Look for
the Find iPhone app in the Extras folder.

Meanwhile, Activation Lock makes it harder for

thieves to sell your device. The phone becomes
unusable - it can’t be reactivated - without
knowing its Apple ID. The feature kicks in
automatically on phones running at least iOS 7.

If all else fails, you can remotely wipe the

phone’s data. While your information will be
lost, at least it won’t end up in the hands of a
nefarious person.

There isn’t anything comparable built into

Android phones, but Google’s Android Device
Manager app, along with a handful of others
made by third parties, can be downloaded for
free from the Google Play app store.

Image: Gary He
25
BACK UP YOUR PHONE
If you do have to remotely wipe the phone’s
data, it’s comforting to know that you won’t lose
all your photos and other important data. It’s
helpful, too, if your toddler dunks your phone in
a glass of water.

As mentioned before, apps such as Find My

iPhone and Android Device Manager will allow
you to do this, provided you set them up ahead
of time.

KEEP YOUR SOFTWARE UP TO DATE

Software updates often contain fixes to known
flaws that might give hackers a way into
your device.

On iPhones, Apple prompts you to get

the update.

It’s more complicated with Android because

updates need to go through various phone
manufacturers and wireless carriers first. But do
install updates when asked.

26
27
ads@techlifenews.com

MindfieldDigital
30
Image: Yuya Shino
31
32
WHY BATTERY TECHNOLOGY HAS SUCH
AN EXCITING FUTURE
Battery technology... it’s an extremely dry
subject, and yet, it is also an extremely
important one in terms of how we lead our
lives. We are all so used to complaining about
the battery lives of our phones, or our inability
to find a certain type of battery that we need in
the local store, that we can end up forgetting
the sheer wonders of batteries, and how far
they have advanced in a relatively short time. If
you disagree, allow us to be your guide to the
amazing future of battery technology!

33
THE GREAT EXPECTATIONS
FOR BATTERIES
Batteries have long been the source of great
wonder - as well as consternation - among
human beings. They’re far from something
that you merely recharge at night or slot into
the back of your electronic device - they have
also been the subject of lofty expectation and
ambition among those wanting to make our
everyday lives as humans that little bit easier.

Smartphone and tablet owners, for example,

demand batteries that last as long as possible
while also adding as little bulk as possible,
while concerns about the environment have
also helped to give batteries a central role in
the drive to generate clean and sustainable
energy via renewable technologies.
Researchers at the likes of Apple, Google and
Tesla are all working hard on the latest battery
innovations, while cars, planes, wearable tech
and even drones are joining smartphones and
other electronic devices on the list of products
that have been key frontiers for battery-related
technological breakthroughs.

It seems that every passing week, there is

a new rumor about that company or this
businessperson trying their luck by ploughing
funds into a much-hyped emergent battery
technology. Sir James Dyson’s $15 million
investment in Sakti3 in early 2015, for
instance, was his first outside his eponymous
company, and was based on his faith that solid-
state technology could yield more energy-dense
and less expensive batteries for Dyson products.
Similarly, Apple has long experimented with
hydrogen-powered smartphones.

34
35
36
Image: Hannibal Hanschke
37
 Image: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory - PNNL
38
THE CONTINUAL REFINEMENT OF
EXISTING BATTERY TECHNOLOGY
It would be easy to venture into quite outlandish
territory when speculating about the forms
that batteries could take in the future - indeed,
we’ll go on to do just that. But to begin with,
let’s contemplate the ways in which future
battery types may actually represent more of
an evolution of what we already have. With
batteries having already been around for
hundreds of years, variations on the existing
lithium-ion technology remain at the forefront of
much battery research.

One possibility, for example, is silicon anode,

given the potential of silicon (Si) to deliver
significantly greater energy storage capacity
when used as an anode material - as much
as 10 times more than the traditional graphite
electrode, in fact. Unfortunately, batteries that
use this technology currently have a rather
brief lifespan, although if this issue does get
resolved - with one suggestion being to coat
the silicon with graphene - the result would
be a battery boasting much-improved energy
density over a standard lithum-ion battery with
a graphite anode.

It has also been suggested that graphene

could replace graphite as the anode for a
lithium-ion battery, while another, perhaps
more imagination-capturing possibility is a
lithium-air battery that - yes, you guessed
it - derives its power from thin air. The latter
battery type would use oxygen from the
ambient atmosphere as its cathode material,
resulting in an incredibly light battery with an
energy density as much as 10 times greater

39
than standard lithium-ion batteries. That said,
as things stand right now, we could be waiting
for as long as 20 years for such technology to
become practically commercialized, due to such
challenges as the difficulties of keeping a lithium
anode stable.

SOME OTHER POSSIBILITIES REALLY GET

THE HEART RACING...
But what about some of the lesser-talked
about forms that batteries could take in the
future, such as wearable batteries? Yes, that’s
right - there have been suggestions that the
batteries of years to come could draw power
from the mechanical energy of people who
walk around wearing them. One such battery,
the work of CSIRO, generates electricity as the
wearer walks, courtesy of a generator placed
into a backpack or garments. The electricity
that is generated subsequently charges up a
fabric-based flexible battery, indicating that
we could soon see variations of it in many
different forms of clothing.

However, there’s also no question of the

importance of renewable power to the next
generation of batteries. A future in which we are
no longer dependent on fossil fuels is as much
a Holy Grail for battery technology researchers
as it is for the rest of us, with a potential glimpse
of the future already provided by Redox flow
batteries currently in use for the storage of solar-
produced electricity on mine sites and in rural
and isolated areas.

What’s more, it is thought that we could soon

be in the era of domestic batteries, each with a
capacity of around 6-10 kWh, and which would
help to bring down residents’ energy bills by

40
taking in electricity from the grid during more
affordable off-peak times and storing it for use
during peak periods. The Tesla Powerwall
battery has been greeted with particular
hype by those heralding the ‘arrival’ of the
domestic battery, and with grid electricity
prices expected to continue rising, it seems
inevitable that more and more homeowners will
decide to make use of home-based batteries.

41
42
Image: Hugo Sharp
43
44
APPLE AND A POTENTIAL
ELECTRIC CAR...
Where does all of this leave Apple? It has long
been thought that Apple could be making
the car its next big product category, with
rumors centering on a potential link-up with
BMW - the manufacturer of the acclaimed
electric i3 - for what has been code-named
“Project Titan”. With Apple having reportedly
poached employees from Tesla - among other
places - for this undertaking on which firm
details have always been so scarce, some have
wondered whether hydrogen fuel cells from
BMW’s laboratories could be used to power any
eventual ‘Apple Car’.
Whatever shape and form batteries will take for
the average consumer in the coming years, no
one denies that real change is coming. The likes
of aluminum-air, sodium-ion, lithium-sulfur and
supercapacitor technologies have all been the
subject of much talk and research, as have more
sci-fi-esque options such as piezoelectric, step-
powered and even (yes, you’re reading this right)
urine-powered technologies.
We’ll leave you with that slightly unappetizing
thought as we declare that, yes, the future really
is a bold one for batteries!
by Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan
45
 Image: Vladimir Floyd
46
HOW TO CLEAN UP YOUR
ONLINE REPUTATION

Messy party photos, offensive tweets, pepper

spraying student protesters ... sometimes,
you just want a do-over when it comes to
your online presence. And for a hefty price
tag, you can.

The University of California, Davis is under fire for

contracting consultants for at least $175,000 to
clean up its online reputation after a November
2011 incident in which campus police pepper-
sprayed peaceful protesters, according to
a report in the Sacramento Bee. If that PR
campaign worked at all, it’s now backfired.
Here’s how this sort of reputation scrubbing is
supposed to help - and some ways in which it
might have the opposite effect.

47
 Image: Rangizzz
48
CALL THE PROS
Services such as Reputationdefender.com and
Naymz.com offer to clean up your name, or, as
the latter advertises, achieve your “professional
and personal aspirations.” A company called
ICMediaDirect advertises reputation control
for $6,300, in which the service will try to “push
down” your undesirable search results by
populating Google with friendly links instead.
These companies didn’t return messages
seeking information about their services.

Instead of lawsuits, for example, the companies

promise that search results will turn up your
LinkedIn profile, business website or other
sites that portray you in a more positive light.
Of course, there’s no guarantee any of this
will work; it’s awfully hard to delete anything
permanently from the Internet.

OR JUST ASK, IF YOU’RE CONTINENTAL

If you happen to be in Europe, you can also
exercise your “right to be forgotten.” This entails
filling out a form that asks search engines like
Google to remove certain links when people
look up your name. Of course, this means
nothing if someone Googles you in the U.S.

49
50
 SOME THINGS JUST DON’T ERASE
Just ask Justine Sacco, the former IAC media
relations representative who lost her job after
an unfortunate tweet - one widely seen as racist,
although Sacco said she was aiming for irony
- raised the hackles of the Twitterverse. Three
years later, the incident still turns up first when
you search for her name on Google.

You also have to consider the possible blowback

when and if your cleanup attempts see the
light of day. That’s the pickle UC Davis is in now.
Some California legislators have called for the
resignation of university chancellor Linda Katehi,
who approved the PR campaign.

GET OLD-FASHIONED,
IF YOU HAVE CLOUT
For companies and public figures like celebrities
and politicians, putting a positive spin on the
negative can be as simple - or as complicated
- as getting a friendly story in the news. Being
proactive is key.

Terry Corbell, a business performance

consultant, recommends “shameless self-
promotion” as a way to build a positive online
reputation before disasters happen. Be active
on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you have
a strong reputation to begin with, it’s easier to
deal with the bad stuff if and when it happens.
And if it does?

“If an organization is at fault, they need to

come clean,” he says. “First is admission of guilt.”
Katehi did apologize for the original pepper
spraying - but so far hasn’t followed suit in the
current controversy.

Image: Gary He
51
52
53
54
What kind of year has 2016 been for Apple?
Frankly, it isn’t easy to say. Come the end of
each year, it’s usually easy to point out Apple’s
various highlights regarding both hardware
and software; however, 2016 has been an up-
and-down year for Apple. While the Cupertino
company has made genuine breakthroughs
and some tantalizing announcements, it has
also faced various challenges, with some
dispirited press reactions and even political
disputes all playing a part.

HOW 2016 HAS DIFFERED FROM 2015

Think back to 2015, and you will recall Apple
unveiling various products that seemed to
indicate major, game-changing shifts for the
company. Think of the super-thin 12-inch
MacBook, the super-big 12.9-inch iPad Pro,
the “future of television” in the form of the
fourth generation Apple TV, and the pressure-
sensitive 3D Touch interface of the iPhone 6s
and iPhone 6s Plus. That year also saw the long-
awaited retail release of the Apple Watch, kick-
starting a whole new product line.

By contrast, in 2016, Apple seemed mainly

concerned with consolidating what it had
started in a big way the year before - so in
March, we got the 4-inch iPhone SE and
9.7-inch iPad Pro. At first glance, these may
appear to be basically shrunken versions of
the iPhone 6s and 12.9-inch iPad Pro, despite
the SE’s significant omission of 3D Touch.
However, look closer at both of these pieces of
hardware, and they offer much more than may
initially meet the eye.

55
THE iPHONE SE AND
THE 9.7-INCH iPAD PRO
By way of example, the iPhone SE packed lots
of modern Apple technology and features,
including the A9 processor, Apple Pay and Live
Photos, into a smaller form factor allowing for
easy one-handed operation. Furthermore, its
inexpensive – by iPhone standards – price,
which started at $399, opened up Apple’s
smartphone to buyers and markets that might
have previously ruled it out due to price alone.
We are certainly very fond ourselves of the SE’s
accessibility and easy mobility.

Meanwhile, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro will actually

make better sense than the 12.9-inch model
for many of its target customers. After all, as
Apple pointed out when unveiling the tablet,
9.7-inch has been the most popular iPad size
- and it makes the slate easier to carry around
than its bigger brother. The device’s lightness,
combined with support for the Apple Pencil
and a specially optimized version of Apple’s
Smart Keyboard, makes it wonderful for on-
the-go productivity.

WHAT OTHER MAJOR PRODUCTS DID

APPLE SHOW US IN 2016?
In June, Apple unveiled iOS 10 – which, like the
hardware we have just mentioned, has more
potential than might initially seem to be the
case. Apple’s move to let third-party developers
integrate their offerings with Siri and iMessage,
which itself got a significant revamp to bring
it closer to parity with Facebook Messenger,
could open up lots of fresh functionality as time
progresses. Apple also expanded the operating

56
Image: The Verge / Vox Media, Inc
57
58
system’s use of 3D Touch, a unique interface still
largely lacking in Android.

iOS 10 is at the heart of the iPhone 7 and

iPhone 7 Plus, which Apple showed the world
the following September. Again, evolution,
not revolution, was the watchword here;
while the new handsets largely resembled the
iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s series from the outside,
looks can be very deceiving. There have been
plaudits for both the water-resistant enclosures
and, on the Plus model, the dual-lens camera,
which can be used to especially impressive
effect with iOS 10’s Portrait mode.

These new features, together with the unveiling

of the wireless AirPods earphones alongside the
iPhone 7 series, mean that Apple’s decision to
jettison the headphone jack has been largely
forgotten. This year, Apple also announced the
Apple Watch Series 2, which closely resembles
its predecessor but focuses even more strongly
on health and fitness tracking, and a redesigned
MacBook Pro - which, rather than adopting a
complete touch-screen, utilizes the more subtle
approach of a small touch-screen strip. Both
products are further evidence of Apple’s mainly
evolutionary approach in 2016.

59
60
61
TUSSLES WITH ALPHABET, THE FBI AND
DONALD TRUMP
However, these generally well-received new
hardware products have not saved Apple
from what has been, at times, a slightly
rocky ride. On two separate occasions, in
February and May, Apple briefly lost
its spot as the largest US company by
market capitalization to Google owner
Alphabet. It was also in February that Apple
publicly defied the FBI’s call for it to help with
bypassing the encryption on an iPhone used
by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino
massacre the previous December.

That dispute ultimately ended in late March,

after the FBI discovered a way to break the
encryption without Apple’s help. However,
given Apple’s strong and unwavering
commitment to customer privacy and security,
it’s hard to believe that the dispute won’t later
flare up again in another form. Apple’s stance
also disgruntled Donald Trump, now the US
President-elect. In February, long before the
election, Trump demanded that his followers
“boycott Apple” in retaliation.

EXAMPLES OF PUBLIC POLEMICS

INSPIRED BY APPLE
It wasn’t just from the political sphere that Apple
was under fire this year. In February, respected
tech blogger Walt Mossberg opined that the
quality of Apple’s software had degraded over
the years – insisting, in an article for The Verge,
that “complexity, feature gaps, and bugs have
crept in”. Nonetheless, his polemic has attracted
its own polemics - including from BGR writer
Yoni Heisler, who declared: “I would contend

62
63
that most of Apple’s software has gotten
better with time”.

Mossberg was also, in late March, faintly

dismissive of the iPhone SE and 9.7-inch iPad
Pro – claiming that they “may be business
wins, but they aren’t technology leaps”.
This led him to insist that “the iPhone 7 had
better be spectacular” – and thankfully, in
this instance, it was Apple itself that provided
a great answer to Mossberg’s remarks. The
following fall, the iPhone 7 was released to
soaring sales in its first two weeks, while
the gadgets have also continued the iPhone’s
recent trend of attracting a high number of
Android switchers.

APPLE’S FINANCIAL
PERFORMANCE IN 2016
Still, the relatively low number of paradigm-
shifting products released onto the market
by Apple in 2016 has left the year looking
like something of a transitional one for the
company. This was reflected by financial
results: in October, Apple reported its first
falls in annual sales and profit since 2001,
the year in which the first version of the
iPod launched. In the 2016 fiscal year, Apple
brought in $215.6bn in sales – 8% less than
the $233.7bn of sales revenue that it amassed
during the 2015 fiscal year.

In the September quarter alone, Apple

shifted 45.5m iPhones – 5% less than in the
corresponding quarter of 2015. While we have
a few more weeks to wait before Apple reveals
how it has fared in the last calendar quarter
of 2016, which is also the first fiscal quarter

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of 2017, the signs look promising. Upon the
announcement of Apple’s September quarter
results, CEO Tim Cook said: “We’re thrilled with
the customer response to iPhone 7, iPhone 7
Plus and Apple Watch Series 2.”

COULD THESE SUBTLE CHANGES LEAD

TO DRAMATIC ONES?
So, we return to the question that we started
with: what kind of year has 2016 been for
Apple? We can now answer with more certainty.
It’s been an evolutionary year, rather than a
revolutionary one; a transitional year, rather
than a landmark one; and yet, despite all of that,
an often volatile year, rather than an easygoing
one. We think that, despite encountering some
pains along the way, Apple has completed some
crucial groundwork for a promising 2017 – and
in the cover article of our next issue, you can
read more about how that year is expected to
unfold for the tech sector.

by Benjamin Kerry & Gavin

67
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 As Ukraine and Belarus on Tuesday marked
the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear
accident with solemn words and an angry
protest, some of the men who were sent to the
site in the first chaotic and frightening days were
gripped by painful memories.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko led

a ceremony in Chernobyl, where work is
underway to complete a 2 billion euro ($2.25
billion) long-term shelter over the building
containing Chernobyl’s exploded reactor.
Once the structure is in place, work will
begin to remove the reactor and its lava-like
radioactive waste.

The disaster shone a spotlight on lax safety

standards and government secrecy in the former
Soviet Union. The explosion on April 26, 1986,
was not reported by Soviet authorities for two
days, and then only after winds had carried the
fallout across Europe and Swedish experts had
gone public with their concerns.

“We honor those who lost their health and

require a special attention from the government
and society,” Poroshenko said. “It’s with an
everlasting pain in our hearts that we remember
those who lost their lives to fight nuclear death.”

About 600,000 people, often referred to as

Chernobyl’s “liquidators,” were sent in to fight the
fire at the nuclear plant and clean up the worst
of its contamination. Thirty workers died either
from the explosion or from acute radiation
sickness within several months. The accident
exposed millions in the region to dangerous
levels of radiation and forced a wide-scale,
permanent evacuation of hundreds of towns
and villages in Ukraine and Belarus.

Image: Pavel Golovkin

71
At a ceremony in their honor in Kiev, some of the
former liquidators told The Associated Press of
their ordeal and surprise that they lived through it.

Oleg Medvedev, now 65, was sent to the zone

on the first day of the crisis, to help evacuate the
workers’ city of Pripyat, less than four kilometers
(2.5 miles) from the destroyed reactor. Four days
later “I already had to go away from the zone
because I’d received the maximum allowable
radiation dose. Thirty years passed and I’m still
alive, despite doctors giving me five. I’m happy
about that.”

“My soul hurts when I think of those days,” said

Dmitry Mikhailov, 56. He was on a crew sent to
evacuate a village where residents knew nothing
of the accident.

“They smiled at us. They didn’t understand what

was happening,” he said. “I wish I knew where and
how they are now. I just can’t forget them.”

In Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where the

government is bringing farming to long fallow
lands affected by Chernobyl fallout, more than
1,000 people held a protest march through the
city center.

Belarus routinely cracks down on dissent, but

authorities allowed the march.

“Chernobyl is continuing today. Our relatives

and friends are dying of cancer,” said 21-year-old
protester Andrei Ostrovtsov.

The final death toll from Chernobyl is subject

to speculation, due to the long-term effects of
radiation, but ranges from an estimate of 9,000 by
the World Health Organization to one of a possible
90,000 by the environmental group Greenpeace.

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The Ukrainian government, however, has
since scaled back benefits for Chernobyl
survivors, making many feel betrayed by their
own country.

“I went in there when everyone was fleeing.

We were going right into the heat,” said
Mykola Bludchiy, who arrived in the Chernobyl
exclusion zone on May 5, just days after the
explosion. “And today everything is forgotten.
It’s a disgrace.”

He spoke Tuesday after a ceremony in Kiev,

where top officials were laying wreaths to a
Chernobyl memorial.

At midnight on Monday, a Chernobyl vigil was

held in the Ukrainian town of Slavutych, where
many former Chernobyl workers were relocated.

Thirty years later, many could not hold back the

tears as they brought flowers and candles to a
memorial for the workers killed in the explosion.
Some of the former liquidators dressed in white
robes and caps for the memorial, just like the
ones they had worn so many years ago.

Andriy Veprev, who had worked at the

Chernobyl nuclear plant for 14 years before
the explosion and helped to clean up the
contamination, said memories of the mayhem
in 1986 were still vivid in his mind.

“I’m proud of those guys who were with me and

who are not with us now,” he said.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin, in a message

to the liquidators, called the Chernobyl disaster
“a grave lesson for all of mankind.”

Image: Gleb Garanich

74
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On a recent Thursday, the staff at Sunny Vista
Living Center in Colorado Springs bustled in
the kitchen. The phone rang with a last minute
order as Chris Willard tended to a large pot of
Thai-style soup with fresh ginger, vegetables and
thin-sliced beef.

It was a special meal for a woman of Asian

descent who didn’t like any of the dozen choices
on the menu.

“You have to be creative,” said Willard, a chef with

an easy smile and a long mustache, who is the
nursing home’s food service director. Earlier that
day, he had received a thumbs-up for his gluten-
free pancakes.

Sunny Vista is part of a slow but growing trend

among the nation’s 15,600 nursing homes to
abandon rigid menus and strict meal times
in favor of a more individualized approach
toward food.

Advocates pushing for the change say it has

taken more than three decades to get to
this point.

Now, the federal government is proposing

regulations that would require facilities to
create menus that reflect religious, cultural and
ethnic needs and preferences, as well. Further,
the proposed rules would empower nursing
home residents with the “right to make personal
dietary choices.”

The government acknowledges that the nation’s

1.4 million nursing home residents are diverse
and that “it may be challenging” to meet every
preference. But it wants facilities to offer residents
“meaningful choices in diets that are nutritionally
adequate and satisfying to the individual.”

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Regulations aside, Donna Manring, owner of
Innovative Dinning Solutions, a consulting
firm, said that aging Baby Boomers will put
pressure on nursing homes to adapt by offering
such menu items as organic vegetables,
locally-sourced meat and gluten-free or
vegetarian options.

“Put your seatbelts on because expectations are

going to grow greatly,” Manring said.

While Sunny Vista is ahead of the proposed

changes, advocates for seniors say many
nursing homes are still stuck in time, operating
like hospitals and offering a limited number of
unsavory meals.

The ability to choose what to eat and when to

do so is hugely important for seniors’ quality
of life, said Amity Overall-Laib, director of
the National Long-Term Care Ombudsman
Resource Center.

Issues with the quantity, quality and variation

of meals rank among the top 10 complaints
of nursing home residents and their relatives
or friends.

Shannon Gimbel, the lead ombudsman for the

Denver region, said the complaints go beyond
the chicken being too dry or too tough. She’s
stepped in to advocate for seniors who weren’t
getting enough food or whose requests for fresh
vegetables were ignored for far too long.

“There are more options than there have ever

been,” Gimbel said. “Do I think it stills needs to be
better? Yes, I do.”

Under current regulations, food is supposed to

be palatable. But Penny Shaw, a nursing home
resident in the Boston area and an advocate

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for nursing home reform, said she’s been
served overcooked vegetables and watery
mashed potatoes.

“Who would want to eat that?” asked Shaw, 72.

Shaw said her nursing home offers menu

choices, but they are limited. She’d love to order
a soup cooked from scratch, kiwis instead of
melon and have an avocado once in a while. But
the soups are pre-made, and kiwis and avocados
are not offered, she said.

“Person-centered implies individualized and I

don’t think that’ll ever happen,” Shaw said.

Part of the problem is cost. In fiscal 2014,

nursing homes spent a daily average of $20.07
per person on dietary costs, which includes the
cost for raw food and kitchen staff, according
to the American Health Care Association, which
represents nursing homes. But those costs vary
widely across the country. In Texas, the average
is $14.54; while New York is $23.97.

Janet Burns, chief executive at Sunny Vista, said

the cost of fresh food is lower than prepackaged
meals, but labor costs are higher. Her dietary
costs were $1.08 higher than the nation’s
average in 2014. However, she said, higher costs
are offset by things like preventing weight loss,
a problem experienced by many nursing home
residents. For example, she said, medication to
increase a resident’s appetite is more expensive
than preparing a special meal.

Costs aside, Burns said, “It’s the right thing to do.”

Sandra Simmons, a professor at Vanderbilt

University who studies quality of care and life in
institutional settings, says studies have shown
that the daily caloric intake of 50 percent to

83
 Image: Alexander Raths
84
70 percent of nursing home residents is below
recommended levels, she said.

The issue, she argues, isn’t just food choices but

low staffing levels. Many nursing home residents
need physical help or, if they have dementia,
they need cues or encouragement to eat. If staff
members are stretched thin, they might not
be able to provide that level of care. And that
means that even if there are choices, residents
might not get them.

Back at Sunny Vista, resident Althea Jones

said it’s been difficult to express her opinions
about food, something ingrained in her since
childhood. No one told her she had a right to
do so, she said. Now she’s being encouraged to
speak up - and her voice is being heard. “I love
beans,” said Jones, 85. “I don’t eat cattle or pigs,
but I can eat chicken.”

85
STARTUP
WANTS TO
PUT SELF-DRIVING
BIG RIGS ON
US HIGHWAYS

Picture an 18-wheel truck barreling down the

highway with 80,000 pounds of cargo and no
one but a robot at the wheel.

To many, that might seem a frightening idea,

even at a time when a few dozen of Google’s
driverless cars are cruising city streets in
California, Texas, Washington and Arizona.

But Anthony Levandowski, a robot-loving

engineer who helped steer Google’s self-driving
technology, is convinced autonomous big rigs
will be the next big thing on the road to a safer
transportation system.

Levandowski left Google earlier this year to

pursue his vision at Otto, a San Francisco startup
the he co-founded with two other former
Google employees, Lior Ron and Don Burnette,
and another robotics expert, Claire Delaunay.

Otto is aiming to equip trucks with software,

sensors, lasers and cameras so they eventually
will be able to navigate the more than 220,000
miles of U.S. highways on their own, while a
human driver naps in the back of the cab or
handles other tasks.

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 Prototype This: Autonomous Pizza Delivery Car
(Google’s Self-Driving Car)

88
For now, the robot truckers would only take
control on the highways, leaving humans to
handle the tougher task of wending through
city streets. The idea is similar to the automated
pilots that fly jets at high altitudes while leaving
the takeoffs and landings to humans.

“Our goal is to make trucks drive as humanly as

possible, but with the reliability of machines,”
Levandowski says.

That objective probably won’t be reached

for decades, despite the progress made with
automated passenger vehicles over the past
five years, predicts Steven Shladover, program
manager for mobility at the University of
California’s Partners for Advanced Transportation
Technology. He maintains that the technology
is still a long way from being reliable enough to
convince government regulators that a robot can
be entrusted to steer a truck traveling at highway
speeds without causing a catastrophic accident.

“I don’t want to be on that highway when there

is nobody there to take over a truck with 80,000
pounds of cargo and I don’t think I know anyone
else who would want to be,” Shladover says.
“The consequences of any kind of failure in any
component would be too severe.”

Google’s self-driving cars have logged about

1.6 million miles in autonomous mode without
being involved in an accident that resulted in
a deaths or major injuries. Of the more than 20
accidents involving its self-driving cars Google
has accepted the blame for only one - a February
collision with a bus in Mountain View, California.

It would be easier to brush off robot trucks

as a far-fetched concept if not for
Levandowski’s background.

89
 Otto – Self-Driving Trucks

90
 Levandowski has been working on automated
driving for more than a decade, starting in 2004
with a self-driving motorcycle called Ghostrider
that is now in the Smithsonian’s National
Museum of American History. He also designed
PriBot, a self-driving Prius that crossed the
San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to deliver a
pizza in 2008 before Google unveiled its fleet of
autonomous cars.

Otto already has assembled a crew of about

40 employees experienced in self-driving cars
to transplant the technology to trucks. With
former employees from Google, Apple and
Tesla Motors, Otto boasts that its team is made
up of “some of the sharpest minds in self-
driving technology.”

Although only four months old, Otto already has

outfitted three big-rig cabs with its automated
technology. The company completed its first
extended test of its system on public highways
in Nevada during the past weekend.

Otto went to Nevada because California’s self-

driving regulations apply only to passenger cars,
forbidding the technology from being used on
public roads by commercial trucks or any vehicle
exceeding 10,000 pounds.

Now, Otto is looking for 1,000 truckers to

volunteer to have self-driving kits installed
on their cabs, at no cost, to help fine-tune the
technology. The volunteer truckers would
still be expected to seize the wheel and take
control of the truck if the technology fails or
the driving conditions make it unsafe to remain
in autonomous mode, mirroring the laws
governing tests of self-driving cars on public
streets and highways.

Image: Gary He
91
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Otto hasn’t set a timetable for completing its
tests, but hopes to eventually retrofit all the
U.S. trucks on the road. That would encompass
more than 4.7 million trucks, according to the
American Trucking Associations.

The startup touts its technology as way to make

up for a worsening shortage of truck drivers as
more of them retire without enough younger
drivers to replace them. Last year, the shortage
stood at 47,500 and, unless recent trends change,
will rise to nearly 175,000 by 2024, according to
the American Trucking Associations.

The trade group hasn’t taken a stand on self-

driving technology, but may draw up a policy
later this year, said Dave Osiecki, executive vice
president and chief of national advocacy.

“We are paying close attention because this

could be huge for trucking in terms of labor
costs and safety,” Osiecki says.

Levandowski insists self-driving trucks aren’t

as scary as they might sound. Robot truckers
are less likely to speed or continue to drive in
unsafe conditions than a human, and will never
get tired. Between 10 and 20 percent of the
roughly 4,000 fatal accidents in the U.S. each
year involving trucks and buses are linked to
driver fatigue, based on estimates gathered by
the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering
and Medicine.

“It’s really silly to have a person steering a truck

for eight hours just to keep it between two lines
on the highway,” Levandowski says.

Online:
Video of Otto’s self-driving truck

93
CHINA’S HUAWEI LOOKS TO BUILD
GLOBAL SMARTPHONE BRAND

Chinese tech giant Huawei wants Americans to

start thinking of it as a stylish smartphone brand.

Huawei Technologies Ltd., which pulled out of

the U.S. market for network switching gear four
years ago due to security fears, became the No.
3 global smartphone seller last year and passed
Apple in China. This year, it launched a new
flagship smartphone, the P9, and is positioning
it to compete with Apple and Samsung.

“China has yet to create a high-end consumer

brand. We want to take that goal onto our
shoulders,” Eric Xu, one of Huawei’s three
rotating co-CEOs, told industry analysts at a
meeting in April.

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96
To do that, Huawei must succeed in the
United States the second- largest market for
handsets after China, accounting for one-
sixth of global sales, according to industry
analysts. There, it starts with almost no market
share and a name that consumers, if they
know it at all, might associate with anxiety
about possible Chinese spying rather than
technology and style.

“It is more difficult than any other market they

have ever entered,” said Nicole Peng of research
firm Canalys. “I don’t think they have concrete
plans yet.”

Outside the United States, the company is

cranking up a global marketing campaign for
the P9 featuring Hollywood stars Henry Cavill
and Scarlett Johansson. For markets from
Bangladesh to Mexico, it has recruited pop
singers and football teams. It partnered with
German photography powerhouse Leica to
develop the camera on the P9.

The company has yet to say when it might sell

the Android-based P9 to Americans or exactly
how it will rebuild its U.S. presence.

“We’re definitely very patient with the U.S.

market,” said Joy Tan, Huawei’s president for
communications, when asked how it planned
to connect with buyers. “We hope these phones
will be accepted by American consumers.”

To meet its ambitious sales growth target of 30

percent a year, Huawei must increase its U.S.
market share to double digits from below 2
percent now, said Peng of Canalys.

Huawei, pronounced “HWAH’-way,” has big

resources to back up its aspirations.

97
It made a 36.9 billion yuan ($5.7 billion) profit
last year on sales of 395 billion yuan ($60.8
billion). That was equal to just one-quarter of
Apple Inc.’s sales, but Huawei spent $9 billion
on research and development to Apple’s
$8.1 billion.

Huawei shipped 108 million handsets last

year, the first Chinese company to pass the
100 million mark. That is a distant third behind
Samsung Electronics Ltd.’s 325 million handsets
and Apple’s 231.5 million.

The company headquartered on a leafy

campus in this southern Chinese tech hub
adjacent to Hong Kong beat Apple and
Samsung to market with a camera equipped
with side-by-side lenses, one in black and
white and one in color, that it says produces
clearer images. The handset is slimmer than the
iPhone 6s or Samsung’s Galaxy 7 but its screen
is bigger than the Apple’s.

Huawei’s phones now are sold in the U.S. only

through its website. But it has a potential
opening with phone carriers that are the
main sales channel and want more products,
according to Gartner analyst Tuong H. Nguyen.

Its “deep understanding” of mobile technology

“could be leveraged for quick product launches of
good quality products,” Nguyen said in an email.

That depends on overcoming any lingering

security fears.

The U.S. market for Huawei’s network gear

evaporated in 2012 after a congressional panel
deemed Huawei and Chinese rival ZTE Corp.
potential security threats and recommended
Americans avoid doing business with them.

98
Image: Gary He
99
100
The previous year, a government panel forced
Huawei to rescind its purchase of a small
California computer company.

“This makes it difficult for Huawei and other

Chinese vendors to penetrate this market,”
said Nguyen.

Huawei rejects accusations it might facilitate

Chinese spying and says American critics
have failed to present evidence to back them
up. The company is privately held but has
begun releasing financial results in hopes
increased transparency will ease Western
security concerns.

For its part, ZTE has been making a quiet U.S.

comeback in smartphones. Its market share
grew to 4 percent last year, according to
Canalys. It is competing with lower prices,
not going after the brand-conscious premium
tier where Huawei will face formidable
competition from Apple and Samsung in their
biggest market.

Founded in 1987 by a former military engineer,

Huawei became the first Chinese supplier
to break into the top ranks of a technology
industry, where it competes with Nokia Corp.
and Sweden’s LM Ericsson in network gear and
wireless base stations. Employees joked that,
operating behind the scenes for its first two
decades, it was the biggest company no one
ever heard of.

Huawei’s priority this year is a marketing

campaign to “address the No. 1 issue that many
people don’t know the company - especially in
Western countries,” said Glory Cheung, president
of marketing for its Consumer Business Group.

101
102
Huawei is cultivating a luxurious image for
its smartphones that contrasts with Apple’s
minimalism. It partnered with luxury brand
Swarovski to design a women’s smartwatch.

“Not defined the Apple way,” said a slide Cheung

showed during the April analyst event. It called
that style “smart and clean but lifeless, soulless
and cut off.”

Huawei’s venture into consumer devices follows

the trail blazed by Nokia Corp. in the 1980s
when the Finnish switching equipment maker
started selling mobile phones.

For two decades, Nokia dominated that market,

before fading with the switch to smartphones.
Nokia sold its mobile phone unit to Microsoft
Corp. in 2014 to focus on network gear.

Nokia’s disappearance shows the market “can

change massively” if a leader makes a mistake,
though overtaking Apple or Samsung would be
a “highly aggressive target,” Peng said.

“It’s relatively easy for them to stay at No. 3,” she

said. “But how to move up to another level? It’s
so much more difficult.”

103
‘THE SIMS’ REMOVES GENDER
BARRIERS IN VIDEO GAME

The creators of “The Sims” are opening up

gender customization options for the first time
in the long-running history of the popular life
simulation video game.

“The Sims” publisher Electronic Arts and

developer Maxis said a free update available
Thursday for “The Sims 4” will remove gender
boundaries and allow players to create virtual
townsfolk - or Sims, as they’re known - with any
type of physique, walk style or voice they choose.

“The Sims 4” and earlier installments of the

16-year-old series previously restricted specific
clothing, hair styles and other aesthetic options
to either male or female characters.

EA and Maxis said over 700 pieces of content

previously available to only male or female Sims
will now be accessible regardless of gender in
“The Sims 4” and its various expansion packs.

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The studio said in a statement it wanted to
“make sure players can create characters they
can identify with or relate to through powerful
tools that give them influence over a Sims’
gender, age, ethnicity, body type and more.”

While previous editions of “The Sims” have

featured character customization restrictions
based on gender, users have unofficially
modified the PC game over the years to remove
such barriers.

“The Sims 4” executive producer Rachel Franklin

said in an email to The Associated Press that the
developers have been working for over a year
on the update. She noted that “female Sims can
wear sharp men’s suits like Ellen (DeGeneres),
and male Sims can wear heels like Prince.”

Franklin also noted players can now change their

Sims’ gender at any time and specify whether
they can reproduce with other characters. She
said Maxis worked with the lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender advocacy group GLAAD on
the update, including following a suggestion
to remove gender symbols associated with
characters in the game’s gallery.

107
108
 “Creating the possibility for greater gender
diversity within the world of ‘The Sims’ is
an exciting development,” said Nick Adams,
director of GLAAD’s transgender media
program. “It was a pleasure working with
developers who were committed to updating
the game so that all players can create a Sims
world that more accurately reflects the world in
which we live today.”

The move brings “The Sims” in line with its

depiction of gay, lesbian and bisexual characters.

The franchise has included same-sex

relationship options since its 2000 debut,
although gamers who desired virtual nuptials
for their Sims of the same sex had to wait until
the release of “The Sims 3” in 2009. “The Sims 4”
was originally released in 2014.

The gaming medium rarely depicts or invites

users to create transgender characters. The
fantasy role-playing game “Dragon Age:
Inquisition” from EA and developer BioWare
notably featured a transgender male character
named Krem in 2014.

Online: www.thesims.com

Image: Gary He
109
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111
112
Astronomers thought they had a handle on
how the universe ticks, but the cosmos may
be toying with them.

A team of astronomers has calculated that

the universe seems to be expanding faster
than what scientists previously figured. If the
new research is right, then science’s basic
understanding of what’s been happening to
the universe in the past 13.8 billion years after
the Big Bang could be just a bit off kilter.

“This is really an end-to-end test the universe

gives us; it’s sort of our final exam,” said Nobel
laureate and study lead author Adam Riess of
the Space Telescope Science Institute . “We
get a D-plus probably because things don’t
match up.”

Astronomers used the Hubble Space

Telescope to measure the distance of 2,400
stars to calculate the rate the universe is
expanding. The number they came up with is
5 to 9 percent faster than other scientifically
accepted measurements that calculate the
expansion rate based on cosmic background
radiation from 380,000 years after the Big
Bang. The new study was released Thursday
by NASA and is to be published in The
Astrophysical Journal.

Either one set of calculations is wrong -

which outside scientists say is the most
likely possibility, though they can’t find
something wrong yet - or the expansion rate
has speeded up since 13.8 billion years ago.
And if that’s the case, as Riess advocates,
then our understanding of the universe is not
quite right.

113
It’s as if we’re looking for someone and we’re
in the right room, but looking at the wrong
wall, said Riess, who won the 2011 Nobel in
physics for proving in 1998 that the universe
is accelerating. So now Riess and many of the
same scientists are trying to figure just where
astronomy made a wrong turn.

Riess and co-author Alex Filippenko of

Berkeley said there are many possible
explanations for why the universe is
expanding faster now: It could be that there’s
a mystery particle, what scientists call a sterile
neutrino, which hasn’t been seen but could
change calculations to make the cosmic
calculations balance out. It could be that dark
energy is increasing. It could be the universe
is more curved than theorized. And it could be
that Einstein’s General Relativity just isn’t quite
right when we look at the whole universe.

Or it could be the measurements are off.

“There’s potentially something very exciting,

very interesting that the data are trying to tell
us about the universe,” Filippenko said.

NASA astrophysicist John Mather, Princeton

astrophysicist David Spergel and California
Institute of Technology physicist Sean
Carroll say while it’s possible that we have
to go back to the cosmological drawing
board, it’s far more likely that one of the two
expansion rate measurements was calculated
wrong somehow.

“It’s far too early to jump up and down to say

the universe is messing with us,” Carroll said,
but then he added that both measurements
were by solid and careful scientists.

114
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Image: Karolina Grabowska
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Since its inception in 2015, Apple Music has
gone from strength to strength. Despite tough
competition from the likes of Spotify, Google
and Tidal, Apple has managed to grow to over
13 million paying subscribers in little over a
year, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Yet,
despite achieving its growth organically, Apple
is now preparing a $500 million takeover bid
for Jay-Z’s streaming service TIDAL.

Launching in Scandinavia as WiMP, Tidal was

bought by ‘Crazy in Love’ hitmaker Jay Z for
$54 million last March, who offered to put the
musicians at the forefront of the streaming
service. A public launch featuring the likes of
Madonna, Drake, Rihanna, Beyonce and Daft
Punk had everybody talking, and music icons
each signed a ‘declaration of support’ and
offering exclusive music, videos and content and
in return receiving equity and a larger royalty
fee. However, despite some exclusives – Beyonce
dropped her new album Lemonade exclusively
on the streaming website earlier this year – Tidal
has failed to make waves. With only 4.2 million
subscribers, the user base is small in comparison
to Spotify, but Apple thinks this is the final piece
of the puzzle to compete globally.

However, laying down half a billion dollars for

just four million customers guarantees nothing
– all could flee to Spotify, or leave streaming
entirely. While some customers cite exclusives
from the likes of Kayne West and Rihanna as
incentives to sign up, others enjoy the lossless
quality sound available on the service. Will
Apple be able to live up to Tidal’s quality
service if a takeover is successful, and will Tidal
really help drive Apple ahead of Spotify in the
streaming game?

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SPOTIFY CONTINUES TO THRIVE
As of March this year, Spotify has a whopping
30 million paying subscribers to its platform,
despite facing growing competition from Apple
Music, Google, Amazon and TIDAL. Thanks to
a strong marketplace position, backing from
industry and a wave of advertising campaigns
tailored towards young people, Spotify has
managed to fight off the competition and
generate growth. Perhaps some of this growth
can be accounted to the changing face of online
music, with more people than ever happy to
cough up $9.99 to listen to their favorite Rihanna
song, or perhaps it comes down to Spotify
being a stronger force than initially reckoned.
Although some figured Apple would quickly
take charge when it announced its streaming
service in 2015, Spotify has proven that good
marketing, a good quality service and great
music is enough to keep its customers happy.

In recent weeks, Apple has hit the headlines

after playing dirty, blocking Spotify’s latest
update from its operating system. As is always
the case on iOS, Apple takes a 30% cut on all
in-app subscriptions, but Spotify is fighting
back, claiming it is unfair for competition. Both
European and US Federals are now on the
case in what will be an interesting legal battle.
Whether it’s right for Apple to take a split of its
competitors profits remains to be seen.

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APPLE AND ITS ACQUISITIONS
If Apple does go ahead and take over Tidal, it
won’t be the first time the Cupertino firm has
acquired another company. Of course, Apple’s
acquisition of Beats saw a three billion dollar
deal, which encompassed Beats Music and
Beats Electronics, but it has famously taken
over other firms since its inception, the first
being Network Innovations back in 1988.
More notable examples include Siri, which is
now an integral part of Apple’s offering, and
most recently LegbaCore, a firmware security
company Apple hopes to use to bolster the
security of its iOS devices.

APPLE MUSIC IS FACING

GROWING COMPETITION
Although Spotify is considered its biggest rival
with over 30 million subscribers, it’s not the
only service Apple Music faces competition
from. Similarly to Apple Music and iOS, Google’s
Play Music All Access, which offers a similar
unlimited music streaming service from $9.99
per month, is baked directly into Android.
When you compare the operating system
marketplace, Google is miles ahead with
Android (65.58%) compared with Apple’s
27.24%. As well as its market share, however,
Google has the infrastructure and advertising
power to generate speedy growth. For example,
as part of its 4th July celebrations, the Alphabet-
owned company has announced a four-month
free trial on its Google Play streaming
service, taking aim at Apple’s already-generous
three-month offering. What’s more, this offer
is advertised on Google’s homepage, the most
visited website in the world.

123
Other competitors come in the form of Amazon
and Microsoft, with the former reportedly
working on its own standalone music
streaming service after its all-in-one Prime
package failed to make waves. Amazon Prime
Music is currently offered as part of its Prime
service, however by differentiating from the
main Amazon brand, the firm hopes to ‘bring
customers closer to Amazon’ and offer a genuine
competitor to Spotify and Apple. Microsoft
Groove, on the other hand, is now offering
124
14-day free trials and recently signed up big
players like Adele, Rihanna and Beyonce to their
streaming service, with many positive reviews
from tech analysts.
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF
STREAMING INVOLVE?
Whether you’re a fan of Apple Music, or you prefer
Spotify, the recent flurry of streaming activity
can only mean one thing – a better service for
consumers. With very little difference between
the two big players, Apple and Spotify must now
take aim and try to differentiate their products
from one another to attract more customers
and build their market shares. One area Apple
wants to do this in is sound quality, and with
TIDAL already offering a lossless, high-resolution
audio subscription for $20 per month, the
Cupertino firm’s rumored takeover bid makes
perfect sense. As well as this, Apple is reportedly
planning to deliver its own high-resolution
audio streaming via its Lightning port. It has
been all-but confirmed that the audio jack will
be removed from Apple’s iPhone 7 when it is
announced in September, but will this make way
for a Lightning port audio connector?
Although some were initially sceptical of a
streaming-only world, and Taylor Swift herself
sticking her two cents worth into the mix, the
rise of online streaming also appears to be a
positive step for artists. Global music revenues
increased by 3.2% in 2015 and digital revenues
overtook physical sales for the first time. IFPI’s
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 Global Music Report also showed a 10.2% rise
in digital revenues to $6.7 billion, and a 45.2%
rise in streaming revenue, which helped boost
music industry revenue to $15billion, the first
year-on-year growth in two decades. After years
of online piracy, it’s clear a Netflix-obsessed
generation now values music as a service and is
willing to pay for it; music to Apple’s ears.

However, streaming music isn’t the only

thing Apple could choose to focus on in the
future. Recently-unveiled YouTube RED offers
a hybrid of both music streaming and Netflix-
style streaming and delivers ad-free music
videos, exclusive movies and other content
from the billion-user website. Google has yet
to unveil subscriber figures for the new RED
service but claims it has added an extra 10%
in additional revenue to its creators thanks
to RED subscriptions. Apple’s newly-unveiled
Apple TV puts ‘apps at the center’ of television,
and has paved the way for more streaming
in the future – but will Apple take the plunge
itself and follow YouTube’s path? ESPN has
already confirmed that it is in talks with Apple
to provide a streaming service, and new rumors
are suggesting Apple might buy HBO, the
makers of Game of Thrones, to give them a
head start into the marketplace. Regardless of
which route it chooses, it’s clear that music isn’t
the only thing Apple wants to stream, but only
time will tell whether an on-demand world will
keep Apple at the top spot.

by Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan

Image: Richard Vogel

127
128
 TECHNOLOGY
GIVES UNIQUE
VOICES TO THOSE
WHO CAN’T SPEAK

Jessie Levine smiles and shakes her head when

she hears the outgoing voicemail message on
her iPhone.

“I sound young! And fast!” she marvels. “That

person never, ever expected to talk like this.”

The message was recorded before Levine was

diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS, in
early 2015, and before the progressive motor
neuron disease caused her speech to become
slow and slurred. But as her ability to talk
deteriorates, she’s exploring a new way to restore
her voice via speech synthesis, or the artificial
production of human speech.

The technology has been around for decades,

but as devices shrink in size, efforts to customize
them are expanding. Multiple companies and
research groups are using speech synthesis
engines to create voices from spoken samples,
usually thousands of recorded sentences.

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130
For example, CereProc, based in Edinburgh,
Scotland, created a voice for the late film critic
Roger Ebert several years before his death
in 2013 by mining commentary tracks he’d
recorded for movies.

But VocaliD, a Belmont, Massachusetts,

company, is taking a different approach by
creating custom voices using just a small sample
from the recipient, even if they can’t speak.

Starting with just a tiny snippet of someone’s

voice - a few seconds of saying “Ahhhh” - the
company matches recipients with a “donor
voice” - in Levine’s case, maybe a relative - and
then blends the two together. The result is a
sound file that can be plugged into any text-to-
speech device.

“I have two sisters, one of whom has a lisp like

I have, which I had before I had ALS. The other
one, we all have this stuffiness to our speech,”
said Levine, 45, the manager of Sullivan County,
New Hampshire. “It never occurred to me that I
could use their voices, adapt it to me, and then
be able to use that.”

Company founder and CEO Rupal Patel is a speech

technology professor on leave from Northeastern
University. Her research found that people with
severe communication disorders preserve the
ability to control aspects of their voices, such as
pitch and loudness. Those characteristics - what
Patel calls the “melody of speech” - are also
important for speaker identity, she said.

“There is a level of empowerment that

comes with having the freedom to be able to
communicate in your own voice, and that’s
such an important thing, which I think has been
overlooked,” Patel said.

131
132
 No one would give a young girl a prosthetic leg
meant for a grown man, she said, and voices
should be no different.

The company delivered its first seven voices late

last year and is working on about seven dozen
more, which will cost $1,249 each. More than
14,000 people worldwide have donated their
voices so far in a process that involves about six
hours and 3,500 sentences read aloud.

One of the first recipients was 17-year-old

Delaney Supple, of Needham, Massachusetts,
who was born with cerebral palsy. She had been
using a generic computerized voice but didn’t
like it much; she makes a gagging gesture when
her mother mentions it.

Some voice devices are controlled by eye

movement or head movement. Delaney Supple
types out her words on a tablet touch screen
and then taps it to play them back.

Delaney likes her new voice. So does her mother,

Erica Supple, who said it’s a much better fit.

“I love listening to it,” she said, “and it’s funny

because when I first heard it ... it sounded a little
bit like her brother’s voice when he was younger.”

Image: Gary He
133
134
 CYBORG STINGRAY
SWIMS TOWARD LIGHT,
BREAKS NEW GROUND

The idea of taking apart a rat’s heart and

transforming it into a tissue-engineered stingray
first came to Kevin Kit Parker during a trip to the
New England Aquarium with his daughter.

Four years later, a robotic ray that swims toward

light has made the cover of Science Magazine
and is pushing the limits of what’s possible in
the design of machines powered by living cells.

A research team based at Harvard University’s

Disease Biophysics Group, which Parker directs,
created the translucent, penny-sized ray with a
gold skeleton and silicone fins layered with the
heart muscle cells of a rat.

It’s remote-controlled, guided by a blinking blue

flashlight. Each burst of blue sets off a cascade
of signals through the cells, which have been
genetically-engineered to respond to light. The
contraction of the tissue creates a downward
motion on the ray’s body. When the tissue
relaxes, the gold skeleton recoils - moving the fin
upward again in an undulating cycle that mimics
the graceful swimming of a real ray or skate.

135
 Image: Jon Chase
136
Parker, whose research includes cardiac cell
biology, launched the project as a method
for learning more about the mysteries of
the human heart and a step toward the far-
off goal of building an artificial one. But the
interdisciplinary project is also sparking interest
in other fields, from marine biology to robotics.

Parker is not a roboticist. But as an Army veteran

who did two tours in Afghanistan, he welcomes
any part his stingrays could play in advancing
the development of machines able to perform
dangerous jobs.

“Bio-hybrid machines - things with synthetic

parts and living materials - they’re going to
happen,” Parker said. “I’ve spent time getting
shot at and seen people getting shot. If I could
build a cyborg so my buddy doesn’t have to
crawl into that ditch to look for an IED, I’d do that
in a heartbeat.”

When he first asked postdoctoral researcher

Sung-Jin Park to help him create the stingray
four years ago, the bench scientist was doubtful.

“I had this whole idea of a laser-guided, tissue-

engineered stingray made out of rat,” Parker
said. “He looked at me like a hog staring at a
wristwatch. He was like, ‘Have I trusted my career
to this yahoo’? I think he thought I was unglued.”

Indeed, the project to build the ray was

more difficult and expensive - close to $1
million, according to Parker - than either of
them imagined. A mechanical engineer by
training, Park had to delve into molecular and
cell biology. The team pulled experts from
diverse fields, including an ichthyologist -
someone who studies fish - to understand
and help replicate a ray’s muscle structure and

137
138
biomechanics. Their work was published in
Science last month.

Biologically-inspired robots aren’t new.

A precursor to the stingray was a tissue-
engineered jellyfish Parker helped create in
2012, also with the aim of understanding the
muscular pumping of a heart. But one of the
robotic stingray’s most intriguing contributions
is the way it shows a glimpse of autonomy,
said John Long, a professor of biology and
cognitive science who directs Vassar College’s
Interdisciplinary Robotics Research Laboratory.

“By putting in the light control they have a way

of controlling the cell without a nervous system,”
said Long, who was not involved in the stingray
research. “We used to control puppets with
strings. Now we can do it with light.”

Long says the creation could spark new research

into autonomous, part-living machines. He
envisions a time when a packet of micro-rays
could be unleashed into a busted sewage pipe
with simple sensors to measure acidity.

The stingrays in Harvard’s lab - Park and his

colleagues built more than 200 of the tiny
creatures during years of research - won’t be
going into any pipe or ocean. They swim in a
pool of warm liquid solution filled with sugar
and salt. The cells couldn’t survive outside of a
dish and weren’t designed to, though Long said
it would be possible to give a similar creature
a skin that wraps up the solution and creates
a kind of circulatory system. Battery power is
a big challenge for robots, especially for tiny,
lightweight machines, Long said, but creating a
living power system of glucose-fed tissue could
extend a robot’s mission time.

139
140
141
At what was once a remote desert outpost with
spotty cell service and little infrastructure other
than the shell of a quarter-billion-dollar futuristic
hangar, Christine Anderson has watched the
transformation of Spaceport America from her
office window.

The hangar sits just to the south, its patina

metal paneling and glass walls rising from the
valley floor.

It’s Anderson’s favorite view.

“I always get inspired,” she said of being at the

spaceport. “It sounds so trite, ‘the dawn of the
new space age,’ but you know it really is. I think
it’s just going to be amazing what we in our
lifetime get to see happening in this industry.”

Even though commercial flights at Spaceport

America have yet to begin, Anderson - executive
director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority
- says her job is done as the spaceport stands
ready for anchor tenant Virgin Galactic and other
companies working in the industry.

Anderson announced her resignation this

summer. Her last day is next week, and the
search is underway for her successor.

Anderson told The Associated Press the decision

to leave was difficult but noted she initially
signed up for only a year. She has served in the
position now for more than five years.

“I figured, ‘This sounds fun. Let’s see if I can help

out for a year as part of the transition process,’”
she said. “Of course, I got so involved and so
excited about the job and the commercial space
industry that one year led to the next and the
next and the next.”

142
143
It hasn’t been easy. There were numerous
contracts to manage during a rocky construction
period. Then there were delays and other
setbacks as Virgin Galactic worked to develop
and test its spacecraft.
Some state legislators called for pulling the
plug, adding fuel to criticisms that the project
- first initiated by former Gov. Bill Richardson,
a Democrat, and British billionaire Richard
Branson - was a boondoggle.
Anderson was grilled at legislative hearings. She
held fast to the idea that the spaceport would
be a game changer for New Mexico.
144
“There are naysayers,” she said. “I think you just
have to maintain the high road with all of that
because it’s an important project, and with any
new thing - this whole spaceport business is
new - you just have to have patience.”
Spaceport Authority board chairman Rick
Holdridge praised Anderson after news broke
of her resignation. He said she took a collection
of contracts that were barely in place and built a
fully functional spaceport.
“I don’t think the people of New Mexico realize
what she has done for the state,” he said.
After beefing up its business plan more than
a year ago, the spaceport has attracted new
customers and hosted events for the public. The
next open house will be in October.
Officials also are in discussions with three major
aerospace companies interested in using it as a
testing ground.
Image: Mark Greenberg
Many companies have nondisclosure
agreements that prevent spaceport officials
from talking about the projects being
conducted at the facility, Anderson said.
While the names may remain secret, Anderson
said the effect on the bottom line is welcome.
Spaceport America is on track this year to have
three-quarters of its operating budget covered
by revenues. Next year, that’s projected to be
90 percent.
145
The goal is to have operations paid entirely
by lease revenues and other user fees given
that the state and taxpayers in southern New
Mexico already have contributed about $220
million to construct what is the nation’s first
purpose-built spaceport.
Another six rocket launches are planned
over the next six months, and the spaceport
is readying to serve as a base for a major
project with Boeing and the adjacent White
Sands Missile Range as researchers work on a
transportation system that can shuttle cargo and
astronauts to the International Space Station.
After starting with little, Anderson said the
spaceport is on the right track.
“When I got here in 2011, it was a construction
site. You couldn’t go out there without your hard
hat on,” she said. “It was tough because it is in
the middle of nowhere. We actually had to build
a whole city in the middle of nowhere.”
Stretching across 28 square miles of the Jornada
del Norte desert basin north of Las Cruces,
146
the spaceport also benefits from thousands of
square miles of restricted air space belonging to
the missile range.
That remoteness is drawing customers,
Anderson said.
“They value the privacy and our airspace and
our 24-7 security,” she said. “This is a competitive
industry, and they’re doing a lot of aerospace
testing that they don’t want other people to
necessarily keep tabs on.”
Anderson, who spent 30 years with the U.S.
Air Force as a civilian before heading up the
spaceport authority, said the one thing she’ll
miss is being in the front row as the burgeoning
industry grows.
The tons of files and boxes of notes she has
amassed have been handed down to her crew.
“I thoroughly believe in the commercial space
industry, and I think we’ve gotten to that place
where we can pass the baton,” she said.
147
CROWDFUNDED
CLASSROOMS:
TEACHERS
INCREASINGLY
SOLICIT ONLINE

Paper? Pencils? Laptops? Robots? Teachers are

increasingly relying on crowdfunding efforts to
stock their classrooms with both the mundane
and sometimes big-ticket items.

Contributions to education campaigns have

climbed on GoFundMe and DonorsChoose,
collectively, from just more than $31.2 million
in 2010 to nearly $140 million in 2015, the do-it-
yourself fundraising sites report. Both sites are
on pace to eclipse that in 2016.

GoFundMe has collected $58 million in just the

last 12 months, and DonorsChoose saw more
than 50,000 campaigns live on the site for the
first time this back-to-school season.

In her first year as an elementary school teacher

in Kingman, Arizona, Shannon Raftery raised
$340 through crowdfunding to supplement the
money she took out of each paycheck to pay for
classroom supplies. Now in Philadelphia, she’s
looking to raise $500 for her new kindergarten
classroom at Roosevelt Elementary School.

148
Image: Matt Rourke
149
She has a supportive principal, she said,
but there is just not enough money in the
notoriously cash-strapped Philadelphia district
to equip her classroom the way she’d like.

In her case, reality is a $200 budget allocated

to cover 25 students in a school where at least
40 percent of students live in poverty. She has
spent that even before the start of classes after
Labor Day.

“I’d rather spend my own money than have my

kids go without something,” she said. “Every
dollar helps.”

But even as Raftery plans to continue pulling

$100 to $150 from each paycheck to meet her
classroom needs, she said, she knows it won’t
be enough. She has bought cleaning supplies,
bulletin board paper, and peach and sky blue
paint to cover her stark white walls. She hopes to
add to seating with beach chairs and bean bags.

“I don’t want a cold environment to ruin a kid’s

first impression of school,” Raftery said.

Donors can scroll through all education

campaigns listed on the sites, resulting in
millions of dollars’ worth of supplies and
equipment infused into both high-poverty
schools and more affluent districts.

“There still is that group of teachers that has

amazing ideas even in the most well-funded
districts, like the sixth-grade teacher wanting
and currently campaigning for an underwater
robot to restore fisheries,” said Chris Pearsall,
DonorsChoose spokesman.

Teachers create campaigns by writing a story

about their needs, often accompanied by
classroom pictures.

150
151
152
Teachers have turned to crowdfunding even
in states with high per-pupil spending. But
while the numbers are enough to cause pause,
they aren’t necessarily surprising, said Michael
Leachman, director of state fiscal research at the
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Post-recession local, state and federal revenue

has been unable to keep up with states’ needs
after deep cuts. Now, other economic factors,
like low property taxes and inflation, are
preventing them from a full recovery, even as
most states have seen gradual improvement in
education funding, Leachman said.

“It’s obviously disturbing that teachers are

having to raise the money that they need to
provide good education to kids,” he said.

With crowdfunding, teachers can access funding

and supplies within weeks of starting a campaign.

153
Allan Rogers teaches third grade at Jackson
Elementary School in Jackson, Louisiana, a
rural community damaged by recent flooding.
He works with students who are already using
crowdfunded supplies mere weeks into the
school year.

“There have been people who have lost

everything due to the flooding, and prior to
the flooding they already didn’t have much,”
Rogers said of students and staff at the school,
where there is no technology budget and
about 96 percent of students are get free or
discounted lunches.

Teachers at the school have campaigned for

basic supplies, like white board markers, but
are also trying to buy a functioning computer
for each classroom, said Megan Phillips, the
school’s principal. They’ve relied exclusively on
crowdfunding to purchase computers, iPad and
iPods for students to use, she said.

“We’re always trying to give students what

they deserve,” Rogers said. “Not only what
they need, but what they deserve.”

154
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156
 NOTIFICATIONS
SENT FOLLOWING
FISHING LICENSE
DATA BREACH

Notices that personal information might have

been compromised will be sent to hunting and
fishing license holders in Idaho and Oregon
following the breach of a vendor’s computer
system. They likely will be sent in Washington
state, too.

Officials in Idaho and Oregon said Dallas-based

Active Network will mail the notices to people
in their states following the computer hack last
week that shut down online license sales.

157
Washington officials said they’re in contact
with the company and expect similar letters
to be sent in their state, but that hadn’t been
finalized Friday. Officials say the number of
records exposed could be in the millions.

Online license sales have been halted in all

three states until the extent of the hack is
fully understood.

“They’ve only been able to confirm that it

was possible that personal information was
accessed,” Idaho Department of Fish and
Game spokesman Mike Keckler said. “We
do not know yet whether or not that
actually occurred, and we may not
ever know.”

Hunting and fishing licenses can still be

purchased at the states’ wildlife offices or at
businesses that sell the licenses.

It’s unclear when online sales might resume.

“I don’t have an estimate,” Bruce Botka of

Washington’s wildlife agency said. “Our most
important concern is ensuring the security of
that particular channel.”

Officials in the three states said only about 20

percent of license sales occur online, with about
80 percent in person at state wildlife offices or
businesses that sell the licenses.

But that can be a problem for out-of-state

hunters or anglers planning trips to the
Northwest. Oregon officials have had to
resort to processing license applications over
the phone, said Rick Hargrave of Oregon’s
Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“Kind of the old-school way,” he said.

158
Image: David McNew
159
DIESELS TAKE BACK
SEAT, ELECTRICS
UP FRONT AT PARIS
CAR SHOW

Carmakers are finding the Paris auto show , held

in a city whose mayor wants to ban diesels to
reduce pollution, to be a fine place to show off
new zero-emission electric vehicles.

Most prominently, Volkswagen will unveil a

small electric car as part of its pivot from diesel
to more electric models as it struggles to recover
from its scandal of rigging more than 11 million
cars to evade diesel emissions tests.

And Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz will unveil

a luxury electric SUV aimed at warding off
competition from, among others, all-electric
upstart Tesla.

Showing electric cars will help avoid a faux

pas in a city where the mayor, Anne Hidalgo,
has campaigned against pollution from
conventional autos. The Sunday before the show
opened, she held a second “Day Without Cars.”
About half the city was off-limits to private cars
for seven hours.

Here’s what to expect at the show, which runs

from Saturday through Oct. 16.

160
161
 Image: Luke Ray
162
I SING THE AUTO ELECTRIC
Volkswagen has vowed to launch more than
30 fully electric vehicle designs by 2025 and
to sell 2 million to 3 million of them a year. Its
new electric car is billed as a “design study” for
future models.

Volkswagen has admitted equipping diesel cars

with software that illegally helped them pass lab
tests of their emissions. In normal driving, the
cars emitted as much as 40 times the U.S. limit of
nitrous oxides, pollutants that can harm peoples’
health. Separate reports have shown that other
automakers’ diesel cars also exceed emission
limits in normal driving, although without
resorting to cheating.

Mercedes-Benz is expected to show off an

SUV that would compete with other luxury
carmakers, in particular Tesla and its Model X.
Tesla loses money but its buzz and rising sales to
rich customers appear to have been noticed by
German automakers.

General Motors Co.’s Opel division has the

Ampera-e, the European version of the
Chevrolet Bolt, which attracted attention when
US regulators said it had a range of 238 miles
(383 kilometers) on a full charge.

Now for the reality check: Not many people buy

electric cars, due to limited range and higher
cost, and when they do it’s often with a fat tax
break. And they’re not really zero emission,
either, if coal or natural gas is burned to
generate the electricity to charge them.

Only 4.2 percent of all passenger car

registrations in the European Union last year
were alternative-fuel vehicles. Yet automakers

163
164
 need to sell at least a few electrics to help meet
increasingly tough government requirements.
The EU is lowering its limit on average carbon
dioxide emissions in 2021; the U.S. will require
fleetwide average mileage of 54.5 mpg by 2025.

Paris Mayor Hidalgo wants to “eradicate” diesel in

the city by 2020.

“You have to come with something new. With

Dieselgate, the world understood that diesel
is last year’s model, that the environmental
problems are too big and that a change
of direction is needed,” said Ferdinand
Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center for
Automotive Research (CAR) at the University of
Duisburg-Essen.

“It makes little sense to make a big deal about

diesel in Paris. You will only get disdainful looks.”

HAVE THE BUTLER BRING MY CAR

Luxury and sports cars are a regular feature of
auto shows, and this one is no exception.

One of the more breathtaking examples is

Ferrari’s limited edition, open-top hybrid
LaFerrari Aperta. The company has shown
photographs of a ferocious-looking, low-slung
two-seater in black with red accents and big side
air scoops.

Porsche has the Panamera 4 E-Hybrid, a four-

door sedan with sports car performance.
Mercedes-Benz will show off its Mercedes-AMG
GT Roadster and GT C Roadster, two-seat sports
cars with fabric roofs that can open or close in
around 11 seconds. The more-powerful GT C has
557 horsepower and goes from zero to 100 kph
(0-62 mph) in just 3.7 seconds.

Image: Gary He
165
SUVS
Carmakers just keep coming out with new SUVs
and crossovers, which are basically regular cars
with SUV features such as bigger wheel wells
and more ground clearance.

It’s a hot category. Analytical firm IHS Markit

says sales of SUVs and crossovers in the midsize
category grew over a decade from 432,500 to
just under 1.71 million in 2015. The forecast is for
more growth.

One of the most important in Europe is the

Peugeot 5008, which is morphing into a
crossover from a so-called multi-purpose
vehicle (translation: van-like vehicle with room
for kids, bikes and skis). Skoda will have its
seven-seat Kodiaq and Suzuki a sub-compact
crossover under the revived Ignis nameplate. At
the higher end, Jaguar Land Rover offers a new
Discovery with its first wholesale body design
change in 12 years.

166
167
FOR THE REST OF US
More basic transportation for the mass market
also will be on hand, several from French
automakers at their home show. Citroen will
show off the third generation of its small C3,
whose distinctive design includes optional
airbumps - cushioned door panels that could
deflect stray shopping carts in parking lots.
Nissan unveils a new version of its Micra
compact. In the midsize category, Honda
has the new five-door version of its venerable
Civic hatchback.
168
NOTABLE ABSENCES
Some carmakers are skipping the show,
including Rolls-Royce, Ford, Mazda, Aston-
Martin, Bentley and Lamborghini. Some luxury
carmakers prefer to do their own exclusive
events; others find the French show too small.
There’s also competition from technology shows.
Ford Motor Co. opted this year to show its wares
at the World Mobile Congress in February in
Barcelona, Spain, where chief executive Mark
Fields talked about the company’s efforts in new
technologies such as autonomous vehicles.
169
 Image: Eric Thayer
170
 CALIFORNIA
EYES UNUSUAL
POWER SOURCE:
ITS GRIDLOCKED
ROADS

All those cars on California’s famously gridlocked

highways could be doing more than just using
energy - they could be producing it.

The California Energy Commission is investing

$2 million to study whether piezoelectric
crystals can be used to produce electricity from
the mechanical energy created by vehicles
driving on roads.

The commission is in the process of choosing

a company or university to take on small-scale
field tests. It will study how the small crystals,
which generate energy when compressed,
could produce electricity for the grid if installed
under asphalt.

171
Scientists already know the technology works,
but the state needs to figure out whether it can
produce high returns without costing too much.
Similar projects in other parts of the world have
been discontinued.

“It’s not hard to see the opportunity in

California,” said Mike Gravely, the commission’s
deputy division chief of energy research and
development. “It’s an energy that’s created but is
just currently lost in vibration.”

Scientists say it’s a matter of shifting perceptions.

“No longer is driving just the act of using energy.

Maybe it’s also part of the process of generating
it,” said Paul Bunje, a scientist at a Los Angeles-
based nonprofit that funds technological
developments and the former founding director
of UCLA’s Center for Climate Change Solutions.

The hope is that the use of clean energy

produced by roads will help the state
reach its goal of producing 50 percent of
California’s electricity with renewables by 2030,
Gravely said.

The state is on target to reach 25 percent

by the end of the year, according to the
energy commission.

Whether the technology can withstand the wear

and tear of traffic is something that concerns Joe
Mahoney, a professor of civil and environmental
engineering at the University of Washington
in Seattle.

“One would need to consider which would last

longer: the pavement or the devices,” he said,
adding highways need to be resurfaced every 10
to 30 years.

Image: Kevork Djansezian

172
173
174
There is also uncertainty about whether the
technology will be competitive enough with
other renewables to merit full-scale investment.

California’s funding to study the technology

follows a series of projects in Tokyo, Italy and
Israel that appear to have failed or been dropped.

Most notably, an Israeli company whose pilot

test attracted global attention in 2009 is now
in the process of liquidation, and the project
was unsuccessful, according to the Israeli
roads authority.

The company, Innowattech, also had plans

to install its devices under a section of
Italian highway but pulled out, according
to Salini Impregilo, the Italian construction
company involved.

It was the Israeli project that inspired California

lawmaker Mike Gatto, a Los Angeles Democrat,
to ask the energy commission to fund pilot
projects in California.

Gatto submitted a bill to the Assembly in 2011

and has lauded the Israeli project in several news
releases since.

He told The Associated Press that he didn’t know

the project apparently failed.

“Hearing these details for the first time

-obviously, they’re not heartening,” Gatto
said. “I don’t want anything to be colored by
one tiny experiment by one company in a
different country.”

Gatto said he thinks the technology is still viable.

“It’s probably that there are cost issues that

might have been present in Israel that might not
be present here,” he said.

175
Innowattech data also featured heavily in the
commission’s feasibility study, published by an
energy consulting company in 2014. The study
gathered and compared the data available from
projects experimenting with the technology at
the time.
But the commission’s Gravely said conclusions
were drawn from a range of sources, assuring
him the results are reliable. He added he has
spoken to several manufacturers within the
United States who are eager to explore it.
Bunje noted it’s not uncommon for a
technology’s early adopters to fail.
176
“Innovation comes with risk,” he said. “There is a
general rule that you don’t know what is going
to work.”
Regardless of the risks, it’s worth trying new
things, he said.
The $2 million California is using to test the
new technology will come from a renewable
investment fund created by the California Public
Utilities Commission. Bidding will end Nov. 18,
and the commission will award the contract in
the spring.
177
178
 PILOTS, AIR TRAFFIC
CONTROLLERS
SHIFTING TO
TEXT MESSAGING

Airline pilots and air traffic controllers are on

schedule to switch to text communications at
most of the nation’s busiest airports by the end
of the year, a milestone that holds the potential
to reduce delays, prevent errors and save
billions of dollars in fuel cost, says the Federal
Aviation Administration.

Controllers and pilots will still use their radios

for quick exchanges like clearance for takeoff
and in emergencies and situations where time
is critical. But the nation’s air traffic system is
gradually shifting to text messages for a majority
of flying instructions.

That’s a big advantage, say government and

industry officials, because up until now longer
and more complicated instructions like a route
change for pilots of planes waiting to take off
are communicated verbally, with each word
laboriously spelled out in the radio alphabet.
Image: Cliff Owen
179
For example, HARD becomes “Hotel Alfa Romeo
Delta.” And it is hard to get it right. Pilots have to
write down the directions as the controller reads
them - then they read them back, also spelling out
each word. If there is a mistake, the controller reads
the directions back to the pilot again the same
way, and so on. Even when there are no mistakes,
the process can eat up valuable minutes.

If controllers want to reroute planes around

a thunderstorm, they have to contact
each plane by radio to relay instructions
individually. With dozens of planes waiting for
their turn to get instructions, the process can
take 30 minutes or longer.

With the new system, called Data Comm, a

controller can type a few instructions into a
computer, tap a key and send the message
directly to the flight management computers
in each plane that needs the information. Pilots
read the information on cockpit display screens
and decide with the push of a button whether
to accept it. The controller’s message is also sent
directly to airline flight dispatch computers,
eliminating more time-consuming steps.

Typing errors are always a risk with text

messaging, but officials said the system has
built-in safeguards that cause it to reject
messages with certain errors.

“Data Comm will allow passengers to get off

the tarmac, into the air and to their destinations
more quickly,” said Jim Eck, FAA’s assistant
administrator for modernization of the air traffic
system. “Airlines will be able to stay on schedule
and packages will be delivered on time.”

Data Comm was rolled out at Dulles

International Airport outside Washington,

180
181
D.C., three weeks ago. “We’re all loving it,” said
controller Sharlotte Yealdhall. “It has made a
huge difference.”

So far, Dulles controllers have been able to

substitute Data Comm for voice communications
for about 10 to 20 percent of their departures.
That share will increase as airlines equip more of
their planes to use the technology.

Eight U.S. passenger and cargo airlines -

American, Delta, Hawaiian, Southwest, United,
Virgin America, United Parcel Service and FedEx
- and 17 international carriers have told the FAA
they plan to add Data Comm to their planes.

Delta estimates that Data Comm can shave one

minute off the time it takes a plane to taxi for
takeoff. Spread over Delta’s fleet of planes, the
airline says that adds up to a savings of about
$20 million a year.

The FAA estimates Data Comm will save airlines

more than $10 billion over the next 30 years and
the government another $1 billion.

The FAA began testing Data Comm in 2013 at

airports in Memphis, Tennessee, and Newark,
New Jersey. At the start of this year, it was in
use at five airports. The FAA says it expects the
system to be in use at 50 airports by the end of
the year.

Planes waiting to take off at airports are one

phase of the Data Comm rollout. The system is
already in use in for high-altitude air traffic on
busy trans-Atlantic routes, but not during the
high-altitude phase of domestic flights. The
FAA expects to have the system ready at its air
traffic centers that handle high-altitude flights
beginning in 2019.

182
183
184
185
 Image: Andres Kudacki
186
A new study paints a picture of an Earth that is
warmer than it has been in about 120,000 years, and
is locked into eventually hitting its hottest mark in
more than 2 million years.

As part of her doctoral dissertation at Stanford

University, Carolyn Snyder , now a climate policy
official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
created a continuous 2 million year temperature
record, much longer than a previous 22,000 year
record. Snyder’s temperature reconstruction,
published Monday in the journal Nature , doesn’t
estimate temperature for a single year, but averages
5,000-year time periods going back a couple
million years.

Snyder based her reconstruction on 61 different

sea surface temperature proxies from across the
globe, such as ratios between magnesium and
calcium, species makeup and acidity. But the
further the study goes back in time, especially
after half a million years, the fewer of those proxies
are available, making the estimates less certain,
she said.

These are rough estimates with large margins

of errors, she said. But she also found that the
temperature changes correlated well to carbon
dioxide levels.

Temperatures averaged out over the most recent

5,000 years - which includes the last 125 years or so
of industrial emissions of heat-trapping gases - are
generally warmer than they have been since about
120,000 years ago or so, Snyder found. And two
interglacial time periods, the one 120,000 years ago
and another just about 2 million years ago, were
the warmest Snyder tracked. They were about 3.6
degrees (2 degrees Celsius) warmer than the current
5,000-year average.

187
With the link to carbon dioxide levels and taking
into account other factors and past trends, Snyder
calculated how much warming can be expected in
the future.

Snyder said if climate factors are the same as in the

past - and that’s a big if - Earth is already committed
to another 7 degrees or so (about 4 degrees Celsius)
of warming over the next few thousand years.

“This is based on what happened in the past,” Snyder

said. “In the past it wasn’t humans messing with
the atmosphere.”

Scientists give various reasons for past changes in

carbon dioxide and heat levels, including regular
slight shifts in Earth’s orbital tilt.

Four outside scientists praised the study’s tracking

of past temperatures, with caveats about how less
certain it is as it gets deeper in the past. Jeremy
Shakun of Boston College said “Snyder’s work is a
great contribution and future work should build
on it.”

But many of the same scientists said Snyder’s

estimate of future warming seems too high. Shakun
called it unrealistic and not matching historical time
periods of similar carbon dioxide levels.

A fifth scientist, Michael Mann of Pennsylvania

State University, called the study provocative and
interesting but said he remains skeptical until
more research confirms it. He found the future
temperature calculations “so much higher than
prevailing estimates that one has to consider it
somewhat of an outlier.”

Online: Nature

188
Image: Cristiana Dias
189
190
 FEDS ACCUSE
SILICON VALLEY FIRM
OF HIRING BIAS

The U.S. Department of Labor has filed a lawsuit

accusing a high-flying Silicon Valley software
company of systematically discriminating against
Asian job applicants over the last five years.

Palantir Technologies was co-founded by

prominent tech financier Peter Thiel with
backing from an investment arm of the CIA.
The Palo Alto, California, company makes data
analytics software used by the U.S. military and
law enforcement agencies, along with banks,
insurance companies and other private clients.

The lawsuit claims Palantir routinely eliminated

Asian job candidates during the resume-
screening and telephone-interview stages of
the company’s hiring process. The claims are
based on a statistical analysis conducted by
federal officials responsible for making sure
government contractors comply with anti-
discrimination rules.

Palantir denied the allegations, saying the

government’s analysis is flawed.

191
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