Every year, it gets harder to keep up with technology updates in convenience services. For many industry players, the pandemic put some projects on hold, but the surging interest in contactless transactions accelerated expansion of technology innovation. An early morning session, "Trending Technologies in Convenience Services," gave attendees a chance to unpack the key tech innovations at the National Automatic Merchandising Association show at Chicago's McCormick Place. "The pandemic has given us a lot of new terms, and it's also accelerated the digital transformation of the industry," session moderator Michael Kasavana, Ph.D., the NAMA endowed professor emeritus, observed at the outset. The well attended session provided updates on artificial intelligence services for convenience services, contactless payments and ways to prevent the growing cybercrime threat.

'Special Report' All-Star Panel reacts to the Senate voting to block a bill that would'codify' abortion nationwide. The Washington Post is facing accusations of activism over a report urging video game companies to take a stand on Roe v. Wade as the Supreme Court mulls overturning the decades-long precedent protecting the legalization of abortions on a federal level. On Wednesday, video game reporters Nathan Grayson and Shannon Liao penned a piece with the headline, "As Roe v. Wade repeal looms, video game industry stays mostly silent," documenting how giants in the gaming world are largely staying out of the abortion debate. The article began by citing Bungie, the "Destiny 2" studio owned by Sony that published a statement "in support of reproductive rights" that decried the overturning of Roe v. Wade among other studios and indie developers. The reporters appeared to side with the company as it faced viral backlash from critics, writing, "Bungie, for its part, stood firm."

Instagram and Facebook users in Texas lost access to certain augmented reality filters Wednesday, following a lawsuit accusing parent company Meta of violating privacy laws. In February, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton revealed he would sue Meta for using facial recognition in filters to collect data for commercial purposes without consent. Paxton claimed Meta was "storing millions of biometric identifiers" that included voiceprints, retina or iris scans, and hand and face geometry. Although Meta argued it does not use facial recognition technology, it has disabled its AR filters and avatars on Facebook and Instagram amid the litigation. The AR effects featured on Facebook, Messenger, Messenger Kids, and Portal will also be shut down for Texas users.

The technical assistance is a follow up to EEOC's announcement last fall that it would address the implications of hiring technologies for bias. In October 2021, Chair Charlotte Burrows said the agency would reach out to stakeholders as part of an initiative to learn about algorithmic tools and identify best practices around algorithmic fairness and the use of AI in employment decisions. Other EEOC members, including Commissioner Keith Sonderling, have previously spoken about the necessity of evaluating algorithm-based tools. A confluence of factors have led the agencies to address the topic, Burrows and Clarke said during Thursday's press call. One is the persistent issue of unemployment for U.S. workers with disabilities.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke speaks at a news conference on Aug. 5, 2021. The federal government said Thursday that artificial intelligence technology to screen new job candidates or monitor their productivity can unfairly discriminate against people with disabilities. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke speaks at a news conference on Aug. 5, 2021. The federal government said Thursday that artificial intelligence technology to screen new job candidates or monitor their productivity can unfairly discriminate against people with disabilities. The federal government said Thursday that artificial intelligence technology to screen new job candidates or monitor worker productivity can unfairly discriminate against people with disabilities, sending a warning to employers that the commonly used hiring tools could violate civil rights laws.

This guidance explains how algorithms and artificial intelligence can lead to disability discrimination in hiring. The Department of Justice enforces disability discrimination laws with respect to state and local government employers. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces disability discrimination laws with respect to employers in the private sector and the federal government. The obligation to avoid disability discrimination in employment applies to both public and private employers. Employers, including state and local government employers, increasingly use hiring technologies to help them select new employees.

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There's no lack of startups around the world trying to make industrial activities more efficient with artificial intelligence. Some invent robots to assist or replace manual labor, while others use machine learning to help businesses discover insights. Synergies Intelligent Systems falls into the second category. Michael Chang founded Synergies in 2016 in Boston to provide easy-to-use AI-powered analytics tools to medium-sized manufacturers. Having worked at Foxconn in Shenzhen in the late 2000s helping the Apple supplier improve yield rate, or reduce the percentage of defective products, using data analysis, Chang realized that not every factory has the financial prowess to spend tens of thousands of dollars on digitization.

If you've seen photos of a teapot shaped like an avocado or read a well-written article that veers off on slightly weird tangents, you may have been exposed to a new trend in artificial intelligence (AI). Machine learning systems called DALL-E, GPT and PaLM are making a splash with their incredible ability to generate creative work. These systems are known as "foundation models" and are not all hype and party tricks. So how does this new approach to AI work? And will it be the end of human creativity and the start of a deep-fake nightmare?

On Tuesday, the European Parliament adopted the final recommendations of its Special Committee on Artificial Intelligence in a Digital Age (AIDA). The text, adopted with 495 votes to 34, and 102 abstentions, says that the public debate on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) should focus on the technology's enormous potential to complement human labour. It notes that the EU has fallen behind in the global race for tech leadership. There is a risk that standards will be developed elsewhere, often by non-democratic actors, while MEPs believe the EU needs to act as a global standard-setter in AI. The EU should not always regulate AI as a technology, say MEPs, and the level of regulatory intervention should be proportionate to the type of risk associated with the particular use of an AI system. The report will feed into upcoming parliamentary work on AI, in particular the AI Act, which is currently being discussed in the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) and the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) committees.