Jeff Bezos has hit out at tech firms who refuse to work on military projects. Google recently pulled out of bidding for a lucrative $10bn Pentagon contract, saying the deal would be'inconsistent with its principles', leaving Amazon and Microsoft among those in the race. Microsoft employees called today for it to pull out of bidding for the same contract, saying that they joined Microsoft with'the expectation that the technologies we build will not cause harm or human suffering.' 'If big tech companies are going to turn their back on US Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble,' Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told the Wired25 summit in San Francisco. 'We are going to continue to support the DOD and I think we should,' Bezos replied.

This work demonstrates a physical attack on a deep learning image classification system using projected light onto a physical scene. Prior work is dominated by techniques for creating adversarial examples which directly manipulate the digital input of the classifier. Such an attack is limited to scenarios where the adversary can directly update the inputs to the classifier. This could happen by intercepting and modifying the inputs to an online API such as Clarifai or Cloud Vision. Such limitations have led to a vein of research around physical attacks where objects are constructed to be inherently adversarial or adversarial modifications are added to cause misclassification. Our work differs from other physical attacks in that we can cause misclassification dynamically without altering physical objects in a permanent way. We construct an experimental setup which includes a light projection source, an object for classification, and a camera to capture the scene. Experiments are conducted against 2D and 3D objects from CIFAR-10. Initial tests show projected light patterns selected via differential evolution could degrade classification from 98% to 22% and 89% to 43% probability for 2D and 3D targets respectively. Subsequent experiments explore sensitivity to physical setup and compare two additional baseline conditions for all 10 CIFAR classes. Some physical targets are more susceptible to perturbation. Simple attacks show near equivalent success, and 6 of the 10 classes were disrupted by light.

We propose a simple cross-sectional research design to identify causal effects that is robust to unobservable heterogeneity. When many observational units are adjacent, it may be sufficient to regress the "spatial first differences" (SFD) of the outcome on the treatment and omit all covariates. This approach is conceptually similar to first differencing approaches in time-series or panel models, except the index for time is replaced with an index for locations in space. The SFD approach identifies plausibly causal effects so long as local changes in the treatment and unobservable confounders are not systematically correlated between immediately adjacent neighbors. We illustrate how this approach can mitigate omitted variables bias through simulation and by estimating returns to schooling along 10th Avenue in New York and I-90 in Chicago. We then more fully explore the benefits of this approach by estimating effects of climate and soil on maize yields across US counties. In each case, we demonstrate the performance of the research design by withholding important covariates during estimation. SFD has multiple appealing features, such as internal robustness checks that exploit rotation of the coordinate system or double-differencing across space, it is immediately applicable to spatially-gridded data sets, and it can be easily implemented in statical packages by replacing a single index in pre-existing time-series functions.

What if public agencies don't change transportation policies or regulations as autonomous vehicles (AVs) enter the market and expand their presence on American roadways? This is one of many questions we investigate in assessing the potential risks that AVs present to the desired future outcomes that cities, regions and states have established through their land use and transportation plans. We use the term "risks" purposefully. This is because our research and modeling reveal the potential for substantial increases in vehicle travel and decreases in transit ridership if AVs operate under current policy and regulatory frameworks. So, what can policymakers and local agencies do?

The Transportation Security Administration is determined to make facial recognition and other biometrics a regular part of the airport experience, and it now has a roadmap for that expansion. The effort will start by teaming with Customs and Border Protection on biometric security for international travel, followed by putting the technology into use for TSA Precheck travelers to speed up their boarding process. After that, it would both devise an "opt-in" biometric system for ordinary domestic passengers and flesh out a deeper infrastructure. While this will include technology like fingerprint readers (primarily for trusted passengers), face identification will remain the "primary means" of verifying identities, the TSA said. As such, you can expect facial recognition to play a major role.

If you think mutant soldiers with unstoppable physical and mental powers sound like nothing more than science fiction, you may be in for a shock. A chilling Government report today warns that the breeding of genetically-modified troops could be a reality within a generation. The creation of bionic soldiers would allow countries to increase their military capability and improve performance of fighting forces. Within 30 years, mutant soldiers could be able to lift huge weights and run at high speeds over extreme distances, the report by the Ministry of Defence's think-tank says. They could also have infra-red night vision and be capable of transmitting their thoughts through electronically-aided telepathy.

The information we post online could reveal insights into our mental health. In fact, according to US experts, it may spot key symptoms of depression and low-mood - months before a doctor's formal diagnosis. Researchers believe an algorithm could potentially scan a person's social media posts and alert them to linguistic red flags which are symptomatic of the condition. Indicators of the condition included mentions of hostility and loneliness, words like'tears' and'feelings', plus use of more first-person pronouns like'I' and'me'. Insight: Indicators of the condition included mentions of hostility and loneliness, words like'tears' and'feelings', plus use of more first-person pronouns like'I' and'me' Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Stony Brook University published their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Popular science fiction of the early 20th century depicted Venus as some kind of wonderland of pleasantly warm temperatures, forests, swamps and even dinosaurs. In 1950, the Hayden Planetarium at the American Natural History Museum were soliciting reservations for the first space tourism mission, well before the modern era of Blue Origins, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. All you had to do was supply your address and tick the box for your preferred destination, which included Venus. Today, Venus is unlikely to be a dream destination for aspiring space tourists. As revealed by numerous missions in the last few decades, rather than being a paradise, the planet is a hellish world of infernal temperatures, a corrosive toxic atmosphere and crushing pressures at the surface.

Private and public sector organisations, across Europe, will be able to utilise the recently opened AI lab to improve services and products. In the AI lab – formed as part of a global partnership between Atos and Google Cloud – organisations will be able to use AI technologies to define and design use cases relevant to their needs. For example, using connected sensors in the supply chain of an energy company to create safer and more efficient operations, or using data analytics and machine learning algorithms to reduce fraud in financial services. Read more on PM Theresa May wants UK to lead the way on AI's future'The Atos AI lab in London will bring together expertise in AI alongside private and public sector organisational capabilities to collaborate and unlock cross-enterprise opportunities,' according to the announcement today. The Minister, Margot James, said: "The UK is leading the way when it comes to expertise in Artificial Intelligence, and the new Atos lab will help to develop this exciting area of technology further. Through our modern Industrial Strategy and near £1 billion sector deal, we're putting AI at the forefront of our plans to make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a digital business."

Whether that acknowledgment convinces the public is another matter. More than half of Americans, for example, are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about sharing the road with a driverless vehicle, according to a May 2017 survey by Pew. Another poll this summer, by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a group that last week expressed concern that the Department of Transportation was taking "its hands off the wheel when it comes to safety" with its latest guidance document, found that more than two-thirds of Americans remain skeptical of autonomous vehicles.