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JoeMerchant writes:

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has officially gained agency-wide access to a nationwide license plate recognition database, according to a contract finalized earlier this month. The system gives the agency access to billions of license plate records and new powers of real-time location tracking, raising significant concerns from civil libertarians.

For civil liberties groups, the implications go far beyond immigration. "There are people circulating in our society who are undocumented," says senior policy analyst Jay Stanley, who studies license plate readers with the ACLU. "Are we as a society, out of our desire to find those people, willing to let our government create an infrastructure that will track all of us?"

Meanwhile, countermeasures are already deployed, and obfuscated:

Known as "Bienvenidos," the Spanish word for "Welcome," the app purports to help navigate the treacherous U.S.-Mexico border by alerting users to a range of obstacles and threats.

The anonymous creators of Bienvenidos attempted to pitch their app this month to numerous media outlets before suddenly reversing their announcement. A YouTube video explaining the technology was inexplicably deleted while the Bienvenidos website became password-protected.

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martyb writes:

Story to hang test comments off of.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Existing law requires, except as otherwise provided, a person who violates any provision of the code to be guilty of a misdemeanor with each offense punishable by a fine of not less than $25 or more than $1,000, or by imprisonment in the county jail for a term not exceeding 6 months, or by both.

This bill would prohibit a food facility, as specified, where food may be consumed on the premises from providing single-use plastic straws to consumers unless requested by the consumer. By creating a new crime and imposing additional enforcement duties on local health agencies, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB1884

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

The XFL American football league, which played a single season in 2001, could return in 2020:

Television ratings for the N.F.L. have fallen 17 percent over the past two seasons. The league is embroiled in a continuing crisis over concussions, and youth participation rates are falling.

All of this suggests a difficult future for the sport, yet the N.F.L.'s most notorious competitor, Vince McMahon's X.F.L., has a comeback in the works. McMahon, the chairman and chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, announced on Thursday that he would take a second crack at professional football, with play scheduled to start in early 2020.

McMahon first tried to reimagine pro football 17 years ago. The old X.F.L. was a joint venture between the World Wrestling Federation (W.W.E.'s former name) and NBC, which had lost rights to broadcast N.F.L. games. Violence was amped up: An opening scramble replaced the coin toss and fair catches were banned. So was the sex appeal, with cheerleaders who were even more scantily clad than the ones in the N.F.L., and advertising that included innuendo about them.

[...] Other than the name, this version will have little in common with the old X.F.L., he said. There will be no cheerleaders, McMahon said. Players with criminal records will not be welcome. Political statements, such as kneeling during the national anthem, will be prohibited.

Also at ESPN and USA Today.

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Detroit News reports, http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2018/01/22/iacobelli-fca-guilty-plea/109718250/

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV officials paid more than $1.5 million to United Auto Workers officers and employees to sway union contract negotiations, federal prosecutors said, part of a $4.5 million corruption scandal involving Detroit's No. 3 automaker.

The accusations made Monday in a plea agreement with former FCA labor negotiator Alphons Iacobelli say for the first time in the investigation that executives' actions were intended to corrupt UAW contract negotiations to favor Fiat Chrysler.

The plea deal suggests the corruption was more widespread than previously disclosed. It lasted for years as Fiat Chrysler officials lavished UAW labor leaders with cash payments and luxury items, including airfare, jewelry and secret $50,000 payments.

After a laundry list of other bribes and (of course) a denial by the CEO of FCA, the story continues

Iacobelli sanctioned the use of training center credit cards by UAW leaders for personal expenses in a bid to keep senior labor leaders "fat, dumb and happy," according to a court filing.

Iacobelli is also accused of spending more than $1 million of union funds on luxury items, including his house, pool, outdoor spa and kitchen, a Ferrari and the two limited-edition, gold Montblanc fountain pens.

Has anyone else (besides the Feds) noticed how easy the UAW contract negotiations have been going since the great recession?

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canopic jug writes:

The 1% grabbed 82% of all wealth created in 2017

More than $8 of every $10 of wealth created last year went to the richest 1%.

That's according to a new report from Oxfam International, which estimates that the bottom 50% of the world's population saw no increase in wealth.

Oxfam says the trend shows that the global economy is skewed in favor of the rich, rewarding wealth instead of work.

"The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system," said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

The New York Times reports "Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit":

President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.

Previously:
Mueller Investigation: Three Former Trump Aides Charged
Michael Flynn Pleads Guilty to Lying to the F.B.I.
UK Election Results; Fired FBI Director's Testimony on Trump; Trump Nominates New FBI Director

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

[...] An analysis of endocranial casts suggests that while Homo sapiens brain size was comparable to that of humans around 300,000 years ago, brain shape evolved gradually until reaching present-day human variation between about 100,000 and 35,000 years ago:

Human brains gradually evolved from a relatively flatter and elongated shape — more like that of Neandertals’ — to a globe shape thanks to a series of genetic tweaks to brain development early in life, the researchers propose January 24 in Science Advances.

A gradual transition to round brains may have stimulated considerable neural reorganization by around 50,000 years ago. That cognitive reworking could have enabled a blossoming of artwork and other forms of symbolic behavior among Stone Age humans, the team suspects. Other researchers have argued, however, that abstract and symbolic thinking flourished even before H. sapiens emerged (SN: 12/27/14, p. 6).

The evolution of modern human brain shape (open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aao5961) (DX)

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Phoenix666 writes:

English remains dominant language preference for immigrants to United States:

How can the Latino population be growing rapidly while Spanish-speaking remains stable? The answer lies in oft-overlooked peculiarities of census data and in the particular linguistic history of the United States.

If one looks only at immigration patterns over the past half-century, it is true that the U.S. has been gaining Spanish-speakers. From 1965 to 2015, roughly half of all immigration has come from Latin American countries. This trend added some 30 million people, most of whom came speaking Spanish, to the American populace.

But this is only half the story. While new immigrants bring Spanish with them, research shows that their children tend to become bilinguals who overwhelmingly prefer English. As a result, the same immigrants' grandchildren likely speak English only.

Linguists call this phenomenon "the three-generation pattern." In essence, it means that non-English languages in the U.S. are lost by or during the third generation.

We can see this pattern playing out in data from the Pew Hispanic Center. Surveys show that in 2000, 48 percent of Latino adults aged 50 to 68 spoke "only English" or "English very well," and that 73 percent of Latino children aged 5 to 17 did.

By 2014, those numbers had jumped to 52 percent and 88 percent, respectively. In other words, the shift from Spanish to English is happening nationwide, both over time and between generations.

If the preferred language is English, why do the immigrants refuse to understand common English terms like "taco," "burrito," "loco," and "amigo?"

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aristarchus writes:

A couple days back, Newsweek reports:

Feminist activists on Sunday are planning to commemorate last year's Women's March, the response to the election of President Donald Trump that was widely regarded as the biggest demonstration in U.S. history.

As they do so, the so-called alt-right—an anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic movement that has struggled to recruit women—is aiming to co-opt this political moment with a series of stunts, including spreading propaganda and a counterdemonstration in Knoxville, Tennessee. This targeting of a feminist event is part of an ongoing pattern of misogynistic behavior in the movement, according to activists and a rights group that spoke to Newsweek.

[...] Trolls from 4chan, an imageboard website that is popular with the alt-right, are planning to post signs at women's studies departments on college campuses Sunday with the hashtag #mybordermychoice, a deliberate perversion of the abortion-rights slogan "my body my choice," according to a series of posts on the site and research conducted by antifascist activists.

[...] Lecia Brooks of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a rights group, told Newsweek that Heimbach [Leader of the Traditionalist Workers' Party] is "no defender of women," referring to altercations involving the opposite sex he has had at demonstrations.

Heimbach replied to that notion by saying legal abortion and illegal immigration were victimizing the unborn and women, and that "women have had their femininity put under attack by a culture that treats them as either sex objects or as mere economic cogs in the capitalist system." Heimbach is a critic of the capitalist system while also being a critic of socialism, and views a "national socialism" system that includes only white non-Jews as an alternative to both. He said the policies of his group were structured to "empower women to their God given honorable place as true equals to men in society through their unique role as mothers and wives." To be clear, he is an ardent critic of contemporary feminism.

Message received, very clear.

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takyon writes:

NASA's Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) instrument, which will study how solar activity affects Earth's upper atmosphere, was launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket and is attached to a commercial satellite. However, GOLD was briefly feared lost along with the two satellites that were launched, until communications were established and it was found that the satellites had been deployed in lower-than-expected orbits:

A brief tracking failure led to fears that the satellite meant to host NASA's new mission to better understand space weather had been lost, according to SpaceFlightNow. Though the European Ariane 5 rocket carrying the satellite lifted off uneventfully, none of the customers with spacecraft on the rocket could reach their probes for some time.

The satellites are in orbit now and have communicated with their control centers, Arianespace announced, but it looks like the rocket deployed the satellites into less than ideal orbits. "The mission experienced some challenges during the launch stages which resulted in the Al Yah 3 satellite being inserted into an orbit that differed from the flight plan," Yahsat, a satellite communications company whose Al Yah 3 vehicle was on the rocket, said in a statement. "However, the satellite is healthy and operating nominally."

The other customer, Luxembourg-based operator SES, also confirmed that its satellite, SES-14, went into a lower orbit than planned but is operating just fine. SES-14 is hosting an instrument called GOLD, which is the first NASA mission to consist of an instrument living on a commercial company's satellite. Both SES and Yahsat say they will figure out a way for the satellites to course-correct in order to get to their originally planned orbits and do their jobs.

An Ariane 5 rocket is scheduled to launch the James Webb Space Telescope in 2019.

Also at the University of Colorado Boulder and Newsweek.

Previously: NASA's GOLD Mission to Study the Upper Atmosphere Using a Commercial Satellite

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takyon writes:

Fake celebrity porn is blowing up on Reddit, thanks to artificial intelligence.

Back in December, the unsavory hobby of a Reddit user by the name of deepfakes became a new centerpiece of artificial intelligence debate, specifically around the newfound ability to face-swap celebrities and porn stars. Using software, deepfakes was able to take the face of famous actresses and swap them with those of porn actresses, letting him live out a fantasy of watching famous people have sex. Now, just two months later, easy-to-use applications have sprouted up with the ability to perform this real-time editing with even more ease, according to Motherboard, which also first reported about deepfakes late last year.

Thanks to AI training techniques like machine learning, scores of photographs can be fed into an algorithm that creates convincing human masks to replace the faces of anyone on video, all by using lookalike data and letting the software train itself to improve over time. In this case, users are putting famous actresses into existing adult films. According to deepfakes, this required some extensive computer science know-how. But Motherboard reports that one user in the burgeoning community of pornographic celebrity face swapping has created a user-friendly app that basically anyone can use.

The same technique can be used for non-pornographic purposes, such as inserting Nicolas Cage's face into classic movies. One user also "outperformed" the Princess Leia scene at the end of Disney's Rogue One (you be the judge, original footage is at the top of the GIF).

The machines are learning.

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Apparition writes:

Rakuten (the owner of Kobo) and Walmart have teamed up to take on the Amazon Kindle.

On Thursday Walmart and Rakuten announced a strategic partnership that makes Walmart Kobo's official partner here in the US:

As part of this alliance, Walmart will become Rakuten Kobo's exclusive mass retail partner for the Kobo brand in the U.S., offering Kobo's nearly six million titles from thousands of publishers and hundreds of thousands of authors to Walmart.com customers. Walmart.com will offer eBooks and audiobooks for sale later this year. Walmart will also sell digital book cards in stores, enabling more than 4,000 stores to carry a broader selection of books for customers.

All eBook content will be accessible through a Walmart/Kobo co-branded app available on all iOS and Android devices, a desktop app and Kobo e-Readers, which will also be sold at Walmart later this year.

Walmart is stepping into a role empty since Border went bankrupt in 2011. While Kobo has previously had US retail partners, including Indiebound and Family Christian Stores, they did not get the privilege of co-branded Kobo apps (just the financial benefit of a cut of ebook sales in exchange for selling Kobo hardware).

For what it is worth, Walmart gets the ebook app under its own brand. Given Kobo's negligible share of the US market, that won't be worth a lot of money, but it is at least an egoboost.

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takyon writes:

Facebook buys Boston software company that authenticates IDs

Facebook Inc is buying a software firm that specializes in authenticating government-issued identification cards, the two companies said on Tuesday, a step that may help the social media company learn more about the people who buy ads on its network.

[...] Boston-based Confirm Inc, which is privately held, said on its website that the acquisition was the culmination of three years of work to build technology to keep people safe online. [...] Confirm says that its software allows for proof of identity for online transactions, allowing users to detect potentially fraudulent activity.

Also at TechCrunch.

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takyon writes:

Xiaomi beats Samsung to top spot in India's smartphone market

Xiaomi couldn't have wished for better timing of two reports that claim it has toppled Samsung to become India's top-selling smartphone company.

The Chinese firm, which is reportedly on a roadshow ahead of an IPO that could value it as high as $100 billion, is said to have beaten Samsung's sales efforts in India, the world's second-largest smartphone market behind China, according to new data from Canalys and Counterpoint.

Data from both analyst houses gave Xiaomi a narrow lead over Samsung in the final quarter of 2017, with 27 percent and 25 percent, respectively, according to Canalys — and 25 percent versus 23 percent, according to Counterpoint.

Counterpoint included year-long figures, which conclude that Samsung (24 percent) is ahead of Xiaomi (19 percent) over the longer timeframe. A glance at the previous year's figures shows that Xiaomi has closed what was once a significant gap with its rival.

Samsung Says Xiaomi Didn't Surpass Its Phone Sales In India

Samsung claims Xiaomi didn't take the title of the largest smartphone vendor in India, thus directly refuting the findings published by research firm Canalys on Wednesday. The Seoul-based original equipment manufacturer remains adamant that it's still the top handset company in the South Asian country "by a distance." Samsung backed its claims by citing an older report from GfK covering a three-month period ending November 30th which states the firm had a 40 percent volume share and 45 percent value share of the Indian smartphone market in terms of sales to consumers. The tech giant also explicitly proclaimed itself a leader in every handset segment in India, from entry-level devices to ultra-premium offerings like the Galaxy Note 8.

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