Welcome to California Inc., the weekly newsletter of the L.A. Times Business Section. That tailwind Wall Streeters are feeling is Friday's news that Americans stepped up their shopping last month. The Commerce Department said retail sales increased 0.4%, suggesting consumers are poised to spur faster growth in the April-June quarter after the economy barely expanded in the first three months of the year. Consumer prices rose a modest 0.2% after a 0.3% drop in March. Above the crowd: On Monday, a new terminal aimed at celebrities and wealthy travelers will open at Los Angeles International Airport.

Microsoft's chief legal officer, Brad Smith (left) said governments should treat the WannaCry ransomware attack as a "wake-up call." Microsoft has criticized governments and intelligence agencies for "stockpiling" vulnerabilities in government computer systems, in the wake of of the WannaCry ransomware that has so far affected 150 countries and an estimated 200,000 computers since Friday. The virus exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows XP which was originally discovered by, and then stolen from, the National Security Agency. "The governments of the world should treat this attack as a wake-up call," Microsoft's chief legal officer Brad Smith wrote in a blog post on Sunday. "They need to take a different approach and adhere in cyberspace to the same rules applied to weapons in the physical world. We need governments to consider the damage to civilians that comes from hoarding these vulnerabilities and the use of these exploits."

Artificial intelligence or AI as it is called in cyber parlance, and believed to be the next big thing in information and technology, can play a key role in good governance, a senior Microsoft official has said. "We are seeing that governments are benefitting through Artificial Intelligence and are able to bring (governance) closer to people in their countries," Dave Forstrom, director of communications for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) group at Microsoft, told PTI. "Absolutely," he answered when asked if AI can be a tool in good governance. "In terms of helping create good governance we're seeing an approach industry--wide right now where it's focused on ethical design and those principles that will help to really govern that," he said on the sidelines of the Microsoft's annual developers conference Build 2017. Microsoft's India-born CEO Satya Nadella has identified AI as the center piece of the company's growth strategy. Forstrom said Microsoft is having partnerships with a number of governments in this regard. "Singapore is one that we recently worked with last year to actually help them create bots to better engage their customers," he said.

The more hopeful among these respondents cited a series of changes they expect in the next decade that could improve the tone of online life. They believe: Technical and human solutions will arise as the online world splinters into segmented, controlled social zones with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). While many of these experts were unanimous in expressing a level of concern about online discourse today many did express an expectation for improvement. These respondents said it is likely the coming decade will see a widespread move to more-secure services, applications, and platforms, reputation systems and more-robust user-identification policies. They predict more online platforms will require clear identification of participants; some expect that online reputation systems will be widely used in the future. Some expect that online social forums will splinter into segmented spaces, some highly protected and monitored while others retain much of the free-for-all character of today's platforms. Many said they expect that due to advances in AI, "intelligent agents" or bots will begin to more thoroughly scour forums for toxic commentary in addition to helping users locate and contribute to civil discussions. Jim Hendler, professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, wrote, "Technologies will evolve/adapt to allow users more control and avoidance of trolling. It will not disappear, but likely will be reduced by technological solutions."

Welcome to the Hackett Group First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Your lines have been placed on listed only mode. Hosting tonight's call are Mr. Ted Fernandez, Chairman and CEO; and Mr. Rob Ramirez, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Ramirez, you may begin. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss The Hackett Group's First Quarter Results. Speaking on the call today and here to answer your questions are Ted Fernandez, Chairman and CEO of The Hackett Group; and myself, Rob Ramirez, Chief Financial Officer. Our press announcement was released over the wires at 4:14 p.m. Eastern Time. For a copy of the release, please visit our website at www.thehackettgroup.com. We will also place any additional financial or statistical data discussed on this call that is not contained in the release on the Investor Relations page of our website. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that in the following comments and in the Q&A session, we will be making statements about expected future results, which may be forward-looking statements for the purposes of the federal securities laws. These statements relate to our current expectations, estimates and projections and are not a guarantee of future performance.

Self-driving is emerging from being a niche technology towards being a mainstream automotive technology. Many experts consider self-driving the way of the future. But with the advancement in driving, it also brings out complexities. All traffic laws and legislation related to driving have been enacted with regards to humans behind the wheel. The prospect of cars being autonomously driven based on automotive technology may throw out a lot we know and think about driving.

Ask a child what an inventor looks like and they will probably describe someone in a moth-eaten white coat with wild hair, mixing colourful chemicals and turning dials on bizarre machines in a makeshift laboratory. But ask the same question of a child in the not-so-distant future and they might instead describe an inventing machine, a computer powered by artificial intelligence (AI), to which humanity has outsourced all innovation. As AI becomes more powerful, the role it plays in the creative process becomes more problematic, particularly for those involved in crafting intellectual property (IP) laws. IP laws are usually conceived to encourage innovation and economic growth, to offer fair compensation for creative work or to respect the dignity and honour of the creator. "Like most legislation, [IP law] is about pragmatic compromise between different stakeholders with different ideals and objectives," says Carrick Flynn, research project manager with the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute.

Historically, companies have pursued the dollar as a measure of value in the pursuit of shareholder value. Cash flow, profits, and asset values are all about dollars. I think an additional set of measurements can be added to the mix around the value of data. Businesses should be measured not only via current financial measurements but also by the amount of monetizable data they can capture, consume, store, and utilize. This doesn't change the role of money; it just augments it with some new ways to value companies by looking at the value of the company's data.

Germany, home to one of the world's largest automotive industries, passed a law Friday, which would allow autonomous cars to be tested on the country's public roads, Reuters reported Friday. The move could provide the country an advantage over the U.S., as it is still quibbling over self-driving legislation here. The German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt called self-driving, "the greatest mobility revolution since the invention of the car." According to the report, the new law would allow human drivers assigned to self-driven vehicles to remove their hands from the steering, giving vehicle makers a chance to get an accurate assessment of the functioning of self-driven vehicles. However, the law still requires human drivers to stay in the driving seat, in case they need to take control at any time during the self-driving trials.

Things don't look good for Uber and autonomous vehicle wunderkind Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer who now leads the startup's robocar program. This week, US District Court William Alsup made two decisive decisions in the lawsuit between Google's autonomous vehicle spinoff Waymo and Uber. You know, the one accusing Levandowski of swiping 14,000 confidential documents from and taking them with him to Uber. First, Alsup rebuffed Uber's efforts to settle the case in arbitration, so the drama will play out publicly during a trial. "We welcome the court's decision today, and we look forward to holding Uber responsible in court for its misconduct," it said in a statement.