IBM's chief executive officer Arvind Krishna today revealed that the company is sunsetting its "general-purpose" facial recognition business. The announcement was revealed in Krishna's letter to members of Congress Monday about racial justice reform. The letter included suggestions for legislation around police reform and the responsible use of technology, such as artificial intelligence, a tool often used in facial recognition and other surveillance software. Krishna wrote that IBM "firmly opposes" the use of "any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms." He asked for a "national dialogue" on how facial recognition should be used, if at all.

In the business world, the opportunities for applying quantum technology relate to optimization: solving difficult business problems, reconfiguring complex processes, and understanding correlations between seemingly disparate data sets. The main purpose of quantum computing is to carry out computationally costly operations in a very short period of time, while at the same time accelerating business performance. Quantum computing can optimize business processes for any number of solutions, for example maximizing cost/benefit ratios or optimizing financial assets, operations and logistics, and workforce management--usually delivering immediate financial gains. Many businesses are already using (or planning to use) classic optimization algorithms. And with four international case studies, Reply has proven that a quantum approach can give better results than existing optimization techniques. Speed and computational power are key components when working with data.

Apple's Siri and Google's voice assistant have both been updated to respond to questions about Black Lives Matter, and rebuff the sentiment behind the response "All Lives Matter." As spotted by sports blogger David Gardner, when asked "Do black lives matter?", Google's Assistant will respond: "Black Lives Matter. Black people deserve the same freedoms afforded to everyone in this country, and recognising the injustice they face is the first step towards fixing it." When asked "Do all lives matter", the Assistant will respond: "Saying'Black Lives Matter' doesn't mean that all lives don't. It means Black lives are at risk in ways others are not."

Mira Robotics' Ugo is a pair of height-adjustable robotic arms mounted on wheels, operated remotely through a wireless connection with a laptop and game controller. A range-measuring laser mounted on the base helps it navigate, while a panel at the top displays eyes to give it a friendlier appearance.

Scientists at Harvard have copied their large, insect-inspired robot HAMR (Harvard Ambulatory Microrobot) into a smaller form factor. The new robot, HAMR-JR, is the size of a penny, measuring 2.25 centimetres across. The robot is capable of quick movement, able to travel 14 times the length of his body in a single second, which makes it one of the smallest and fastest robots currently made, according to Harvard. While it might be the size of a penny, it is significantly lighter, weighing only 0.3 grams. The ability to keep the familiar design, but change the scale of the robot, means that it can be used in a variety of purposes, including surgeries or large-scale industry because of its ability to carry heavy payloads. The method of miniaturising the robot was surprisingly straightforward: researchers simply shrunk the 2D sheet design of the robot, as well as its circulatory, to a more minute scale.

Jack Weast, vice president of autonomous vehicle standards at Intel Corp's Mobileye, in an interview on Friday said the auto industry was assembling a vast list of likely road scenarios and human behavior that every driverless car should be able to navigate safely. Government agencies and insurance companies are part of that process, Weast said.

Now, one firm wants to take things even further. It is developing machine-learning software to measure how quickly employees complete different tasks and suggest ways to speed them up. The tool also gives each person a productivity score, which managers can use to identify those employees who are most worth retaining--and those who are not. How you feel about this will depend on how you view the covenant between employer and employee. Is it okay to be spied on by people because they pay you?

The IIHS studied over 5,000 crashes with detailed causes that were collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, separating out those caused by "sensing and perceiving" errors such as driver distraction, impaired visibility or failing to spot hazards until it was too late. Researchers also separated crashes caused by human "incapacitation" including drivers impaired by alcohol or drugs, those who fell asleep or drivers with medical problems. Self-driving vehicles can prevent those, the study found.

A four-legged robot that inspects concrete can walk through underground sewage tunnels and detect when they need repairing. Hendrik Kolvenbach at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland and his colleagues have developed a robot that scratches one of its legs against concrete to determine the condition it is in. The robot is waterproof and it can wade through water and climb over obstacles. Because many modern sewage systems were built decades ago, constant underground monitoring is needed to prevent major leaks.

In archaeology, there are few watershed moments, when a technological breakthrough changes everything. But the invention of radiocarbon dating in the 1940s brought one such revolution, by providing a consistent, worldwide system for placing archaeological material in chronological order. A more-recent transformative innovation is the airborne application of a remote-sensing technique called light detection and ranging (lidar) to create a model (also known as a digital-elevation model) of the bare-surface terrain that is hidden by trees in forested areas1. Lidar is changing archaeological study of the ancient Maya in Mexico and Central America. It is increasing the speed and scale of discovery, and reshaping our understanding of the antiquity of monumental-scale landscape alteration.