The United States announced a new alliance Wednesday with Australia and Britain to strengthen military capabilities in the face of growing rivalry with China, including a new Australian nuclear submarine fleet and cruise missiles. The announcement of the alliance -- made in a video meeting by President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his British counterpart Boris Johnson -- is sure to raise hackles in Beijing. It also met with swift pushback from France, which has been negotiating a multi-billion-dollar sale of conventional submarines to Australia. Biden said the work to enable Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines would ensure that they had "the most modern capabilities we need to maneuver and defend against rapidly evolving threats." The submarines, stressed Biden and the other leaders, will not be nuclear armed, only powered with nuclear reactors.

The president of Microsoft has called for greater government regulation of AI facial recognition technology, because of the risk of it discriminating against women and people of colour. In a rare incident of a tech giant calling for greater government scrutiny, Brad Smith said such regulation would help avoid "a commercial race to the bottom, with tech companies forced to choose between social responsibility and market success". The comments of Mr Smith, 59, which were released at the same time as a report by a research group consisting of both Microsoft and Google employees also calling for more regulation, are especially noteworthy because of the controversy the company triggered earlier this year over its AI work. In June, the company's general manager Tom Keane, wrote how proud Microsoft was to be working with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to use facial recognition technology to help identify immigrants and process applications. In a blog post about Azure Government, a programme designed to allow government agencies upload information to the computing cloud, he said: "The agency is currently implementing transformative technologies for homeland security and public safety, and we're proud to support this work with our mission-critical cloud." The comments were made as the Trump administration and ICE were facing intense criticism from human rights advocates and others for the way migrant families were being broken up and separated at the US-Mexico border.

Almost ten years after Google secretly started work on technology that would allow a vehicle to operate without a human driver, the company has launched the nation's first commercial self-driving robo-taxi. Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, introduced a small fleet of ride-hailing vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona, asking people to pay, just as they would to travel by Uber or Lyft. For now, the project will also feature a human driver behind the wheel, just in case the robotic vehicle malfunctions. "Over time, we hope to make Waymo One available to even more members of the public Self-driving technology is new to many, so we're proceeding carefully," Waymo's CEO John Krafcik, wrote in a blog post about Wednesday's run-out. He added: "Almost 10 years ago, we were founded as the Google self-driving car project to explore one simple question: how can we best use fully self-driving technology to make roads safer? We've been focused on building the world's most experienced driver ever since."

A group of Amazon shareholders is asking CEO Jeff Bezos to stop selling and marketing facial recognition technology to governments after civil liberties groups warned of the potential for abuse. Earlier this year, a group of advocacy organisations led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a report detailing how Amazon was marketing its Rekognition tool to American law enforcement agencies. In addition to touting the technology as helping to find suspects, Amazon has said it could be used to preemptively identify "persons of interest" and prevent crimes. A letter signed by 19 shareholders - and provided to The Independent by the ACLU - urges Mr Bezos to halt the tool's expansion until those concerns can be addressed. Amazon supplier investigated over'mistreatment' of workers in China How Alexa recorded a family's conversation then sent it to someone Amazon told to stop selling facial recognition tools to police Amazon supplier investigated over'mistreatment' of workers in China How Alexa recorded a family's conversation then sent it to someone Furnishing police and sheriff's departments with the tool would bolster "government surveillance infrastructure technology" and could drive down Amazon's value, the letter warned. It also echoed concerns about the potential for misuse. "While Rekognition may be intended to enhance some law enforcement activities, we are deeply concerned it may ultimately violate civil and human rights", the letter said.

A Tesla's autopilot function was engaged in the minutes before a fiery crash that killed its driver in California earlier this year, according to a federal inquiry. In the roughly 20 minutes before the vehicle slammed into a barrier near Mountain View and burst into flames, the car's autopilot feature was in "continuous operation", the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found in its initial investigation. During the critical 60 seconds leading up to the crash, the NTSB reported, the car's driver repeatedly placed his hands on the steering wheel. Tesla crashes into parked police car in Autopilot mode Wall Street blasts Elon Musk's'truly bizarre' Tesla earnings call Tesla faces labour investigation after allegation of injury undercount But six seconds before the accident, evidence suggests the driver had removed his hands from the steering wheel. The vehicle also accelerated in the final three seconds.

Google will reportedly halt its work on a military project that had fomented an employee revolt. Google Cloud chief Diane Greene told employees that the company would not renew its contract with the US military, according to multiple reports, acceding to a broad backlash against Google developing technology that could be weaponised. A representative of Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Google blasted for listing'Nazism' as tenet of California Republicans Google quietly removes'don't be evil' preface from code of conduct Hundreds of AI experts call on Google to stop weaponizing technology Google blasted for listing'Nazism' as tenet of California Republicans Google quietly removes'don't be evil' preface from code of conduct Thousands of workers had signed a letter asking leadership to end its involvement in a Pentagon pilot programme, known as Project Maven", that uses artificial intelligence to decipher video footage and could be used to improve targeted drone strikes. "We believe that Google should not be in the business of war", the letter read, cautioning that the tool could be used to "assist the US Government in military surveillance - and potentially lethal outcomes".

Michelle Obama took an apparent swipe at Donald Trump's social media habits, saying she uses social media "like a grown-up". "How many kids do you know that the first thing that comes off the top of their head is the first thing they should express? It's like, 'Take a minute. Talk to your crew before you put that [out there] and then spell check and check the grammar,'" the former First Lady said during a panel in New York, according to People. While Ms Obama did not mention the President by name, Mr Trump is known for stream-of-consciousness bursts of tweets that periodically contain grammatical and spelling errors.

In nearly a year since he took office, President Donald Trump has had countless meetings with leaders all around the world – and, with that, countless awkward handshakes. But, with a little training, one robot-maker says the notorious grip can be'defeated.' A hilarious video has demonstrated the'Donald Trump Handshake Robot,' which aims to mimic the unpredictable nature of the president's handshake to reveal the best option for reciprocating. The robot itself is essentially just a robotic arm, decorated in a large suit and topped off with a cut-out of the president's face. There are several different types of handshakes it can do, from'regular' and'hand on shoulder,' to'locking fingers' Recent research from the Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina found men and women under 30 have a weaker grip strength than they did in 1985.