Earth's orbit is getting crowded. Last year, a record 2,409 objects were sent to orbit, the bulk of which were satellites settling into the increasingly cluttered region 1,200 miles above our planet's surface known as low Earth orbit. Another 2,000-plus satellites have joined them so far this year, according to the UN's Online Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space. As the presence of artificial objects in orbit grows, so too does the accumulation of debris, or space junk -- and the risk of collisions. Dealing with existing waste and preventing its unchecked growth has become imperative, but it's a problem that doesn't have one simple solution. Currently, the US Department of Defense's Space Surveillance Network tracks more than 25,000 objects larger than 4 inches wide, most of which are concentrated in low Earth orbit, and there are an estimated millions of smaller objects still that are trickier to pinpoint.

Thatcham Research, the motor insurers' automotive research centre, welcomed the government's ambition but warned "complete clarity around the driver's legal responsibilities" was needed, along with transparency on how the technology is marketed, "how the dealer describes systems when handing over the keys and how the self-driving system itself communicates with the driver".

An internal fight over whether Google built technology with human-like consciousness has spilled into the open, exposing the ambitions and risks inherent in artificial intelligence that can feel all too real. The Silicon Valley giant suspended one of its engineers last week who argued the firm's AI system LaMDA seemed "sentient," a claim Google officially disagrees with. Several experts told AFP they were also highly skeptical of the consciousness claim, but said human nature and ambition could easily confuse the issue. "The problem is that… when we encounter strings of words that belong to the languages we speak, we make sense of them," said Emily M. Bender, a linguistics professor at University of Washington. "We are doing the work of imagining a mind that's not there," she added.

I have chosen a text of my preferred author and thinker Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt about "Engines of Disharmony". The text is publicly available on the website of Goldratt Consulting [1] in Pdf format. The text represents the foreword of the Japanese version of Eli's book "The Choice". I downloaded the Pdf file and transformed the text into a plain ASCII text. For the analysis, I only used the first four pages of the original document.

How do virtual assistants like Alexa affect children's learning experiences? Some experts say easy answers delivered by technology can hurt the development of problem-solving skills in kids. How do virtual assistants like Alexa affect children's learning experiences? Some experts say easy answers delivered by technology can hurt the development of problem-solving skills in kids. A 6-year-old boy recently asked that question in a video, which went viral on Twitter with more than 8.5 million views.