Most of you will have interacted with several algorithms already today. Algorithms are of course simply sets of rules for solving problems, and existed long before computers. But algorithms are now everywhere in digital services. An algorithm decided the results of your internet searches today. If you used Google Maps to get here, an algorithm proposed your route. Algorithms decided the news you read on your news feed and the ads you saw.

An ex-Apple engineer has been charged with stealing secret blueprints for the tech giant's automated car project before trying to flee the US for China. Xiaolang Zhang was arrested by FBI agents at San Jose airport in California on Saturday when he passed through a security checkpoint. He is accused of downloading the plan for a circuit board for the automated car just days before he quit to go to a Chinese self-driving car startup. The charge is punishable by 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. A criminal complaint filed on Monday said Zhang was hired by Apple in December of 2015 to develop software and hardware for the company's autonomous vehicle project, where he designed and tested circuit boards to analyze sensor data.

Many social critics and observers have argued in recent decades that the Orwellian notion of a dystopian, "Big Brother is watching you" future was a false alarm. A New York Times report details how Chinese authorities are using cutting-edge technology to increasingly keep tabs on their citizens, in order to nab drug smugglers and murder suspects and even to publicly shame inconsiderate jay-walkers. "With millions of cameras and billions of lines of code, China is building a high-tech authoritarian future," the Times' technology correspondent Paul Mozur wrote. "Beijing is embracing technologies like facial recognition and artificial intelligence to identify and track 1.4 billion people. It wants to assemble a vast and unprecedented national surveillance system, with crucial help from its thriving technology industry."

The U.S. navy has said that from January 2016 to August 2017 there was an average of 2.5 "unsafe" or "unprofessional" interactions per month between U.S. Navy and Iranian maritime forces, including an Iranian drone flying near a U.S. Navy warplane and Iranian military boat sailing close to a US Navy vessel. Tehran has accused U.S. forces of provocation.

Most technologies are dual use: take the case of digital technologies that are fundamentally transforming governance, markets and development for the better. Yet the malicious use of these same technologies also poses serious challenges to global stability. In the current international climate, the potential for miscalculation and destabilization is real. Online crime is already costing the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars a year and appears to be worsening. Meanwhile, the race is on to dominate and in some cases weaponize frontier technologies – including artificial intelligence (AI) – with implications that will undoubtedly shape the future direction of humanity.

It's completely understandable why you might overlook the news that the Federal Communications Commission will conduct a pair of high-band frequency spectrum auctions later this year. But if you are among the 77 percent of Americans who own a smartphone or you wish your home broadband speeds were faster, this is an important development. The two spectrum auctions announced today by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, planned to begin in November, will help drive innovations in the evolution of 5G. That means the potential for speeds 100 times faster than current 4G networks and far lower latency, or better network responsiveness. "5G has the potential to have an enormously positive impact on American consumers," Pai said in a statement to USA TODAY.

A major milestone for a secretive hypersonic spaceplane the military could one day use to launch satellites at short notice have been completed. The reusable Phantom Express spaceplane will take off vertically and land horizontally, and is being built by Boeing as part of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Experimental Spaceplane program, and its engines have now passed a key test. It is hoped it will play a crucial role in future space warfare, allowing military bosses to launch satellites and replace damaged ones within hours. The reusable Phantom Express spaceplane will take off vertically and land horizontally, and is being built by Boeing as part of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Experimental Spaceplane program. The Pentagon's research arm now test-fired the new rocket engine 10 times in as many days, a critical step toward a space plane that can put satellites in orbit on a daily basis, project officials said.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk on Tuesday landed a deal with Chinese authorities to build a new auto plant in Shanghai, its first factory outside the United States, that would double the size of the electric car maker's global manufacturing. The deal was announced as Tesla raised prices on U.S.-made vehicles it sells in China to offset the cost of new tariffs imposed by the Chinese government in retaliation for U.S. President Donald Trump's heavier duties on Chinese goods. Musk was in Shanghai Tuesday, and the Shanghai government in a statement said it welcomed Tesla's move to invest not only in a new factory in the city, a center of the Chinese auto industry, but in research and development, as well. China has long pushed to capture more of the talent and capital invested by global automakers in advanced electric vehicle technology. Tesla plans to produce the first cars about two years after construction begins on its Shanghai factory, ramping up to as many as 500,000 vehicles a year about two to three years later, the company said.

Most new cars come with a range of connected options, from Bluetooth to Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Here's how to distinguish among them and how to determine what you need. Apple is offering free fixes for some Macbook and Macbook Pro computers that aren't operating correctly. It was almost a perfect getaway, but a former Apple employee was captured at the airport just before boarding a flight to China, after apparently stealing some of the tech giant's secret plans for self-driving cars. The ex-employee, Xiaolang Zhang, had been a person of interest, already interviewed several times by Apple, and also by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Controversy arose not long ago when it became clear that Google had provided its TensorFlow APIs to the US Department of Defense's Project Maven. Google's assistance was needed to flag images from hours of drone footage for analyst review. There is clearly an ethical debate about the acceptability of appropriating ML for military uses. More broadly, there is also an important debate about the unintended consequences of ML that has not been weaponized but simply behaves unexpectedly, which results in damage or loss. Adding ML to a system inevitably introduces a black box and that generates risks.