BEIJING - Huawei Technologies Ltd. showed off a new processor chip for data centers and cloud computing Monday, expanding into new and growing markets despite Western warnings the company might be a security risk. Huawei and other Chinese technology companies that rely on Western technology are stepping up efforts to develop their own. The company based in southern China's Shenzhen has pushed ahead with commercial initiatives despite the Dec. 1 arrest of its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, in Canada on U.S. charges related to possible violations of trade sanctions on Iran. Huawei said the Kunpeng 920 chip is designed for servers that handle a flood of data from smartphones, video and other network services -- a fast growing sector with the development of artificial intelligence and the "internet of things." The company said it is part of a planned product lineup to support "intelligent computing."

The program aims to develop a semi-automated system capable of identifying and drawing correlations between seemingly unrelated events or data, helping to inform or create broad narratives about the world around us. KAIROS' research objectives will be approached in two stages (See Figure). This image outlines the two stages of the KAIROS program. DARPA will hold a Proposers Day on January 9, 2019 from 10:00am to 2:30pm (EST) at the Holiday Inn at Ballston, 4610 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, Virginia 22203 to provide more information about KAIROS and answer questions from potential proposers. A Broad Agency Announcement that fully describes the program structure and objectives can be found here.

Police will be given new powers to tackle the illegal use of drones, the government has announced. The area around airports where drones are banned from flying will also be extended, and from 30 November operators of drones between 250g and 20kg will need to be registered. Labour said action on drones should have been taken years ago. Last month flights from Gatwick were suspended for more than 36 hours after drones were reported over the airfield. The plans follow a consultation into the use of drones which began in July.

The NIMBUS Lab at the University of Nebraska has been developing drones that have the unique ability to dig holes in the ground and then fill those holes with sensors. If this sounds like a complicated task, that's because it is: The drone needs to be able to carry a portable digging system a useful distance, locate a diggable spot, land, verify that the spot it thought was diggable is in fact diggable, dig a hole and install the sensor, and then fly off again. At IROS late last year, folks from the NIMBUS Lab presented a paper detailing a rather burly quadcopter that could carry an auger with an embedded sensor and use it to place the sensor in the ground (you can see a video of this in action here). And at ISER a few weeks later, they presented another paper on how the drone can autonomously figure out whether it's digging in a good spot or not. One of the biggest challenges to a system like this is that by the time you pack in the drilling rig and all the sensors and computers that the drone needs to operate autonomously, you'll be lucky if the thing will manage to keep itself aloft for more than just a few minutes.

An autonomous robot that can make bread, a phone that can transform into a tablet, and a talking toilet are among the gadgets on show at the world's biggest technology show. The BreadBot, made by US firm the Wilkinson Baking Company, can mix, proof and bake bread on its own and can produce a loaf every six minutes once up to full speed. It appeared at the CES Unveiled preview show, which offered an early glimpse of the gadgets going on display when the conference opens on Tuesday 8 January. The FlexPai foldable phone, built by Chinese startup Royole, is capable of folding from 0 to 180 degrees in order to function as both a tablet and a smartphone. Royole is billing the device as "the world's first commercial foldable smartphone", with a developer model currently available for pre-order at £1,209.

This Employment Law This Week Monthly Rundown features a recap of the biggest employment law trends from 2018 and a look ahead at what's to come in 2019. Specifically, this episode includes the following: 1. #MeToo Movement in the Workplace For employers, 2018 was the year of #MeToo. While the movement began in the fall of 2017, last year, it touched every aspect of employment law--from harassment training to arbitration. Jennifer Gefsky (Member of the Firm, Epstein Becker Green): "I think if the #MeToo movement taught us one thing, it's that employers face significant liability and risk in the event that allegations are made against any employee or supervisor or the highest-level executive at the company." In 2019, we can expect to see more legislative action, particularly in the area of equal pay, where much of the #MeToo focus has shifted.

Once it was fashionable to fret about the prospect of super-intelligent machines taking over the world. The past year showed that AI may cause all sorts of hazards long before that happens. The latest AI methods excel at perceptual tasks such as classifying images and transcribing speech, but the hype and excitement over these skills have disguised how far we really are from building machines as clever as we are. Six controversies from 2018 stand out as warnings that even the smartest AI algorithms can misbehave, or that carelessly applying them can have dire consequences. After a fatal accident involving one of Uber's self-driving cars in March, investigators found that the company's technology had failed catastrophically, in a way that could easily have been prevented.

Trade tensions between the US and China and the ongoing government shutdown have led to some key attendees missing out on the world's biggest technology trade show. CES 2019, taking place this week in Las Vegas, has served as a showcase for China's burgeoning tech industry in recent years, with 2018's keynote delivered by one of Huawei's top executives. Richard Yu, CEO of the Chinese firm's consumer business group, originally planned to show off the Huawei Mate 10 Pro smartphone but took the opportunity to criticise US carrier AT&T's sudden decision to pull out of a deal to sell the phone. The decision had apparently come as a result of espionage concerns raised by the US government, which linked Huawei to Chinese government surveillance. "We win the trust of the Chinese carriers, we win the trust of the emerging markets... and also we win the trust of the gloabl carriers, all the European and Japanese carriers," Mr Yu said.

This is the final of a series of three posts in which leaders reflect: in the first leaders recommended their book of 2018 and in the second considered lessons learned about themselves in 2018. "We will see renewed calls for diversity and inclusion to be placed at the heart of corporate hiring strategies to aid social mobility and avoid further social upheaval," state Euan Blair and Sophie Adelman, cofounders, WhiteHat The cost of inaction is too high. "If mainstream leaders in politics and business insist on carrying on regardless, I think it's going to be explosive," warns Helena Morrissey, founder of the 30% Club, and Head of Personal Investment, Legal & General There is, of course, real business rationale. "Stimulating diversity of thought is essential for businesses, their employees and society as a whole. Companies that don't promote diversity and inclusion in the widest sense will be left behind," adds Chris Grigg, CEO, British Land.

Contemplating the future..Depositphotos enhanced by CogWorld The rapid progress and development in artificial intelligence (AI) is prompting desperate speculation about its dual use applications and security risks. From autonomous weapons systems (AWS) to facial recognition technology to decision-making algorithms, each emerging application of artificial intelligence brings with it both good and bad. It is this dual nature of artificial intelligence technology that is bringing enormous security risks to not only individuals and entities across nations: its government, industries, organizations and academia (NGIOA) but also the future of humanity. The reality is that any new AI innovation might be used for both beneficial and harmful purposes: any single algorithm that may provide important economic applications might also lead to the production of unprecedented weapons of mass destruction on a scale that is difficult to fathom. As a result, the concerns about artificial intelligence-based automation are growing.