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Woman hospitalized after being hit, pinned under self-driving car in San Francisco

Los Angeles Times

A woman was hospitalized after being hit by two cars, one of them self-driving, on Monday night in San Francisco, according to authorities. The woman was hit at about 9:31 p.m. at the intersection of 5th and Market Streets, according to a San Francisco Fire Department news release. First responders arrived to find a woman pinned underneath a self-driving car with "multiple traumatic injuries." Firefighters and members of the San Francisco Police Department communicated remotely with the operator of the vehicle to make sure the car was stopped, according to the San Francisco Fire Department. The woman was treated at the scene and taken to San Francisco General Hospital.


This New Autonomous Drone for Cops Can Track You In the Dark

WIRED

Nearly 1,500 US police departments operate drones but only about a dozen routinely dispatch them in response to 911 calls, according to ACLU research. Drone maker Skydio aims to see that change, with a new model launched last week called the X10. The goal, cofounder and CEO Adam Bry said during a launch event last week in San Francisco, is to "get drones everywhere they can be useful in public safety." The new drone is capable of flying at speeds of 45 miles per hour and is small enough to fit into the trunk of a police car. It has infrared sensors that can be used to track people and fly autonomously in the dark.


Chromebooks get a boost from Google. Will longer lifespan help users?

Los Angeles Times

Google's Chromebook has become ubiquitous in classrooms across the United States, often considered the go-to option for digital learning given its relative affordability and web-based programs -- a combination that proved even more valuable for distance learning during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since Chromebooks' launch more than a decade ago as a cheaper alternative to tablets, their use has expanded exponentially in schools nationwide, providing more students a personal computer device -- including in many low-income districts. And although issues of internet connection and at-home access to devices persist, new improvements to the Chromebook could help stretch its lifetime and scope. Google recently announced plans to expand Chromebooks' automatic updates up to 10 years, maximizing the potential lifespan of the devices that have become key for both in-school lessons and after-school studies. Beginning next year, the change will automatically apply to all Chromebooks launched in 2021 or later, and for devices released before 2021 there will be an option to extend the updates to 10 years from the platform's original release, Google officials said.


John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, other prominent authors sue OpenAI for copyright infringement

FOX News

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. The suit was organized by the Authors Guild and also includes David Baldacci, Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen and Elin Hilderbrand among others. "It is imperative that we stop this theft in its tracks or we will destroy our incredible literary culture, which feeds many other creative industries in the U.S.," Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger said in a statement. "Great books are generally written by those who spend their careers and, indeed, their lives, learning and perfecting their crafts. To preserve our literature, authors must have the ability to control if and how their works are used by generative AI."


NYPD to use drones to monitor backyard parties over Labor Day weekend, sparking privacy concerns

FOX News

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. The New York City Police Department announced plans to fly surveillance drones over the city this Labor Day weekend to monitor outdoor parties or barbecues following complaints about large gatherings. The decision was revealed during a security briefing addressing J'ouvert, an annual Caribbean festival marking the end of slavery in which thousands of people take to the streets of Brooklyn. Assistant NYPD Commissioner Kaz Daughtry said at a press conference Thursday that the drones will respond to "non-priority and priority calls."


Pressmatch: Automated journalist recommendation for media coverage with Nearest Neighbor search

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Slating a product for release often involves pitching journalists to run stories on your press release. Good media coverage often ensures greater product reach and drives audience engagement for those products. Hence, ensuring that those releases are pitched to the right journalists with relevant interests is crucial, since they receive several pitches daily. Keeping up with journalist beats and curating a media contacts list is often a huge and time-consuming task. This study proposes a model to automate and expedite the process by recommending suitable journalists to run media coverage on the press releases provided by the user.


NYPD will use drones to monitor private parties over Labor Day weekend

Engadget

The New York Police department has been using drones in a limited capacity for years -- deploying unmanned aircraft systems for search and rescue missions, to document crime scenes, or to monitor large public events like New Years Eve in Times Square. Soon, you might see one in your backyard as well: NYPD officials have announced plans to use drones to follow up on noise complaints during the long Labor Day weekend. "If a caller states there is a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we're going to be utilizing our assets to go up and check on the party," Assistant NYPD Commissioner Kaz Daughtry said during a press conference Thursday. Privacy advocates have been quick to respond, with a representative from the New York Civil Liberties Union telling the Associated Press that the announcement "flies in the face of the POST Act" that requires police to publish its use policies for surveillance technology. And indeed, the plan could represent a stark departure from those policies.


A Google-powered chatbot is handling GM's non-emergency OnStar calls

Engadget

General Motors is taking Google's AI chatbot on the road. The automaker announced today that it's using Google Cloud's Dialogflow to automate some non-emergency OnStar features like navigation and call routing. Crucially, the automaker claims the bot can pinpoint keywords indicating an emergency situation and "quickly route the call" to trained humans when needed. GM says the system frees up OnStar Advisors to spend more time with customers requiring a live human. According to GM, the OnStar Interactive Virtual Assistant (IVA) has used Google Cloud's Dialogflow under the hood since IVA's 2022 launch.


NVIDIA records mega profits thanks to its AI chip business

Engadget

If you've been wondering who's making the most money from the AI boom, NVIDIA may have the answer in it's latest earnings report. The company announced revenue of $13.51 billion in the second quarter, more than doubling the $6.7 billion it made last year and crushing market expectations. On top of that, it earned $6.18 billion in GAAP net income, nine times the $656 million it made in Q2 2022. NVIDIA's gaming segment did pretty well too, thanks to $2.49 billion in Q2 revenue, up 22 percent from last year. During the quarter, it started shipping the budget-oriented GeForce RTX 4060 GPU, announced the Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) for games and saw the addition of 35 DLSS games including Diablo IV. (Earlier this week, it unveiled DLSS 3.5 designed to use AI to make ray-traced games look better.)


Robo-Taxis Are Legal Now

The New Yorker

The California Public Utilities Commission--a state agency that regulates power, water, and telecommunications companies, as well as movers, taxicabs, rideshare services, and self-driving cars--is headquartered in a large, curved building on Van Ness Avenue, in San Francisco, that looks a bit like a sun visor. Last Thursday morning, a small group of protesters gathered on the steps in advance of the commission's vote on whether to allow the autonomous-vehicle companies Cruise and Waymo to expand their fleets, and charge for rides, like a taxi service, in the city. A man holding a megaphone denounced corporate greed, while other people unfurled hand-painted banners. One depicted a dead dog lying in the street--possibly a reference to the small dog killed earlier this summer by a Waymo car. Another showed an autonomous vehicle in flames bearing down on a crowd of firemen, police officers, and taxi-drivers.