The mayor of London has written to the owner of the King's Cross development demanding to know whether the company believes its use of facial recognition software in its CCTV systems is legal. Sadiq Khan said he wanted to express his concern a day after the property company behind the 27-hectare (67-acre) central London site admitted it was using the technology "in the interests of public safety". In his letter, shared with the Guardian, the Labour mayor writes to Robert Evans, the chief executive of the King's Cross development, to "request more information about exactly how this technology is being used". Khan also asks for "reassurance that you have been liaising with government ministers and the Information Commissioner's Office to ensure its use is fully compliant with the law as it stands". The owner of King's Cross is one of the first property companies to acknowledge it is deploying facial recognition software, even though it has been criticised by human rights group Liberty as "a disturbing expansion of mass surveillance".

The team leading NASA's first mission to take a rock sample from the asteroid Bennu has selected four sites for the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to'tag'. The spacecraft has already mapped the entire Bennu meteor - dubbed the'apocalypse asteroid' - in order to identify the safest and most accessible spots to retrieve a chunk of its surface. Now, the four locations will be studied before the final two sites – a primary and backup – are selected in December, this year. The OSIRIS-REx sample collection is scheduled for the latter half of 2020, and the spacecraft will return the asteroid samples to Earth on September 24, 2023. Osprey is set in a small crater, 66 feet (20 m) in diameter, which is also located in Bennu's equatorial region at 11 degrees north latitude, while Sandpiper is located in the meteor's southern hemisphere, at 47 degrees south latitude Sites: Nightingale is the northern-most site, situated at 56 degrees north latitude on Bennu, while Kingfisher is located in a small crater near Bennu's equator at 11 degrees north latitude The four candidate sample sites on Bennu are designated Nightingale, Kingfisher, Osprey, and Sandpiper – all birds native to Egypt. The naming theme complements the mission's two other naming conventions – Egyptian deities (the asteroid and spacecraft) and mythological birds (surface features on Bennu).

Despite facial recognition's seal of approval from law enforcement agencies across the U.S., recent experiments show the technology is far from infallible. In a demonstration by the American Civil Liberties Union, about 26 California lawmakers were misidentified by face-matching software built by Amazon, putting the rate of a mismatch at about 1 in 5. The results mimic a similar test done by the advocacy group in 2018 when a test saw Amazon's software, called'Rekognition', mismatch 28 members of congress -- many of whom were people of color. The ACLU says a test of Amazon's facial recognition software misidentified 1 in 5 lawmakers fed into its system Similarly, the software attempted to match their head shots against a database of known criminals -- a process that has become commonplace for the at least 200 departments across the U.S. who use Rekognition software. According to the LA Times, the test is fueling calls from California legislators to limit the technology's application in a law enforcement capacity, including its integration with police body cameras.

Russia's space agency has released eerie footage of its human-like android which will board the International Space Station next week. Nicknamed Fedor - which stands for Final Experimental Demonstration Research - the anthropomorphous machine was seen undergoing a battery of stress-tests at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Dubbed Putin's robo-naut, the machine can be seen determining targets and honing in on specific points, such as steering wheels, which will surely come in handy while they're in orbit. The scenes come ahead of its inclusion on the unmanned Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft on 22 August 2019. 'MMA fighter' loses temper and battles two revellers at once In action: Dubbed Putin's robo-naut, the machine can be seen determining targets and honing in on specific points, such as steering wheels, which will surely come in handy while they're in orbit On time: Putin's deputy premier, Dmitry Rogozin, claimed the war in Syria had shown Russia the importance of robots in difficult environments, and promised Fedor would make its space debut in five years - a deadline it will soon meet Fedor stands 6-foot tall, weighs no less than 233 pounds depending on extra equipment, and can lift up to 44 pounds of cargo.

Thanks to major improvements in computing power, increasingly sophisticated algorithms, and an unprecedented amount of data, artificial intelligence (AI) has started generating significant economic value. With algorithms that make predictions from large amounts of data, AI contributes, by some estimates, about $2 trillion to today's global economy. It could add as much as $16 trillion by 2030, making it more than 10 percent of gross world product. AI's outsize contribution to global economic growth has important implications for geopolitics. Around the world, governments are ramping up their investments in AI research and development (R&D), infrastructure, talent, and product development.

The AI Lab will bring together the industry's best academics, specialists and technology companies to work on some of the biggest challenges in health and care, including earlier cancer detection, new dementia treatments and more personalised care. AI is already being developed in some hospitals, successfully predicting cancer survival rates and cutting the number of missed appointments. The lab will sit within NHSX, the new organisation that will oversee the digitisation of the health and care system, in partnership with the Accelerated Access Collaborative. The investment will support the ambitions in the NHS Long Term Plan, which includes pledges to use AI to help clinicians eliminate variations in care. The NHS is revered for the world-class care it provides every day – a treasured institution that showcases the very best of Britain.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short, has become quite the public buzzword. Companies and investors are pouring money into the field. Universities -- even high schools -- are rushing to start new degree programs or colleges dedicated to AI. Civil society organizations are scrambling to understand the impact of AI technology on humanity, and governments are competing to encourage or regulate AI research and deployment. One country, the United Arab Emirates, even boasts a minister for AI. At the same time, the world's militaries are developing AI-based weaponry to defeat their enemies, police agencies are experimenting with AI as a surveillance tool to identify or interrogate suspects, and companies are testing its ability to replace humans in menial or more meaningful jobs -- all of which may change the equation of life for all of the world's people.

The Food and Drug Administration has to recall hundreds of foods every year. Like cookie snack packs with chunks of blue plastic hiding inside, Salmonella-tainted taco seasoning or curry powder laced with lead. It can take months before a recall is issued. But now researchers have come up with a method that might fast-track that process, leading to early detection and, ultimately, faster recalls. The system relies on the fact that people increasingly buy foods and spices online.

Illinois is attempting to stay at the forefront of legislating the interaction between employment and technology with the Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act (Act), which the state legislature passed on May 29, 2019. The Act, which is effective Jan. 1, 2020, impacts an employer's ability to use artificial intelligence (AI) when hiring workers in Illinois. Under the Act, an employer using videotaped interviews when filling a position in Illinois may use AI to analyze the interview footage only if 1) the employer notifies the applicant that the videotaped interview may be analyzed using AI for purposes of evaluating the applicant's fitness for the position, 2) the employer provides the applicant with information about how the AI works and what characteristics it uses to evaluate applicants, and 3) the employer obtains consent from the applicant to use AI for an analysis of the video interview. Further, because audio will be recorded, the employer must obtain the consent of the applicant to videotape the interview with or without the use of AI. An employer is not required to consider an applicant who refuses to provide consent for the employer's use of AI to evaluate the candidate.

We live in a world where increasingly globalisation is under threat. The biggest threat comes from trade wars, started by Mr Trump, that could significantly harm the world economy. Last year already, the International Monetary Fund warned that Trump's trade war could cost the global economy $430 billion in 2020. As the IMF's report states, all countries will suffer, but the USA the most. Trade wars are bad for the global economy as, in the interconnected world that we live in, it will affect everyone; from small business to large conglomerates.