There is much to admire about the US. The great French social observer Alexis de Tocqueville, nearly 200 years ago, lauded its commitment to civic virtue, individual self-improvement and hard work – legacies of its puritan founders. Those traits are still evident today, but alongside them a darker one has emerged. The US, the hegemon of the 20th century still committed to democracy, has changed. It has transmuted into an imperial power careless of democracy but ever readier to exact economic tribute from its vassal states.

For speedier entry into the U.S., your most important travel tool is now your face. All three of the Bay Area's airports are deploying new facial recognition technology, called Simplified Arrival, to screen incoming international passengers and testing it in San Jose to track some departing passengers too. "You get instant verification," said James Hutton of U.S. Customs and Border Protection on a recent morning as hordes of bleary-eyed travelers streamed through San Francisco International Airport's immigration control booths and paused for a snapshot. "The camera does immediate identification," he said, "telling the customs officer that, 'This is the person that's in front of me.' " The old approach we've long relied on -- passport scanning and stamping -- has vanished. Instead, in a major overhaul of its strategy of processing travelers, government officials have installed cameras next to customs officers at all 238 international airports, 13 seaports and every pedestrian and bus processing facility along the nation's northern and southern land borders.

In 2008, the journalist Jonah Lehrer paid a visit to a lab in Lausanne, Switzerland, to profile Henry Markram, a world-renowned neuroscientist. Markram, a South African, had trained at a series of élite institutions in Israel, the United States, and Germany; in the nineties, he published foundational papers on neural connections and synaptic activity. Markram's work in the laboratory, which involved piercing neural membranes with what Lehrer described as an "invisibly sharp glass pipette," was known for its painstaking precision. Lehrer's visit, however, had been occasioned not by Markram's incremental contributions to the field--it's not easy to sell a colorful profile on the basis of such publications as "The neural code between neocortical pyramidal neurons depends on neurotransmitter release probability"--but by Markram's pivot, in the early two-thousands, to brain simulation. Neuroscience, Markram declaimed to Lehrer, had reached an impasse. Researchers had generated an enormous wealth of fine-grained data, but the marginal returns had begun to diminish.

Philadelphia, PA, Nov. 29, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VSBLTY Groupe Technologies Corp. (OTCQB: VSBGF) (CSE: VSBY) (Frankfurt 5VS) ("VSBLTY"), a leading software provider of security and retail analytics technology, today issued its CEO Update to highlight Q3 financial performance as well as recent corporate milestones. VSBLTY CEO & Co-founder Jay Hutton said, "VSBLTY is pleased to report that the third quarter bookings were a strong $4.5 million USD, resulting in a booked to revenue ratio of over 8 to 1 and providing a leading indicator of the Company's revenue growth potential. Q3 revenue reached $522,683 USD, reflecting continued strong sales of both retail and security solutions." Hutton added, "Further encouraging is that Q4 revenue is already considerably ahead of Q3 results and we are anticipating a strong finish to this calendar year." Since the end of Q3 the Company has seen a significant increase in the exercise of its previously issued Warrants, resulting in cash inflows of over $2.8 million USD.

So, Brexit Tories, let's see the colour of your money. So far, Brexit has meant billions spent on new, trade-inhibiting customs facilities, a proposed US trade deal that will necessarily compromise food standards to make us ill and a slump in inward investment. Not to mention deepening the crisis caused by Covid with the de facto no-deal Brexit. But now comes a chance to redeem yourselves, at least in part. Weeks after the referendum vote, Britain lost its biggest and best technology company – Arm – to the predatory charms of the megalomaniac Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son's SoftBank.

Newswire) Investorideas.com, a global investor news source covering Artificial Intelligence issues a special edition of The AI Eye, reporting on recent news from VSBLTY Groupe Technologies Corp. (CSE:VSBY) (OTC: VSBGF) (5VS.F), a leading retail software and technology company using artificial intelligence. VSBLTY Groupe Technologies Corp. (CSE:VSBY) (5VS.F) (OTC:VSBGF) and intelligent lighting solutions provider Energetika's smart city contract with Mexico City has begun deployment. Investorideas.com caught up with VSBLTY co-founder and CEO, Jay Hutton for an interview in which he explained how this smart city contract goes further than what is standard. Hutton said that while smart city solutions typically cover commercial properties, VSBLTY and Energetika are also bringing application to residential spaces. "When you look at smart cities, often you see a focus on commercial applications," he said.

Newswire) VSBLTY Groupe Technologies Corp. (CSE: VSBY) (5VS.F) (VSBGF) ("VSBLTY"), a leading retail software technology company, and Energetika, an international provider of "intelligent lighting" solutions, today formalized a definitive three-year agreement to provide real time crowd analytics and audience measurement for Latin American communities. Energetika is a leading provider of smart lighting solutions for economically efficient applications that incorporate security. Energetika's efficient lighting and Smart Energy solutions for residential, commercial and governmental applications will now incorporate VSBLTY's security technology that includes crowd analytics and facial recognition. The contract, which expires August 30, 2022 and is renewable for successive terms, was announced jointly by Jay Hutton, VSBLTY co-founder and CEO, and Rodrigo Calderon, Energetika co-founder and CEO. In making the announcement, Hutton said, "We are pleased to formalize a long-term contract with Energetika. We will be providing advanced analytics as well as public safety applications including tracking of persons of interest, weapon detection, and vehicle and crowd analytics using the power of machine learning and computer vision. This contract is expected to generate more than $10 million USD in SaaS revenue to VSBLTY in the initial three years."

VSBLTY Groupe Technologies Corp. (CSE:VSBY) (OTC:VSBGF) (5VS.F) is uniquely positioned to facilitate the growth of smart city technology in the Latin American market, according to company co-founder and CEO Jay Hutton. This will be made possible through the company's just announced three-year agreement with intelligent lighting solutions provider Energetika. VSBLTY is to provide real time crowd analytics and audience measurement for Latin American communities. Hutton explained how VSBLTY's technology is ideal for the growth of smart cities in the region. "If you think of smart cities as a three-legged stool: the one leg is information, the second is analytics and the third is facial recognition for the purposes of law enforcement," said Hutton.

Newswire) VSBLTY Groupe Technologies Corp. (CSE: VSBY) (5VS.F) (VSBGF), a leading software technology company, was selected by Microsoft (MSFT) to join its elite group of global independent software vendors for intensive joint sales, support and go-to-market initiatives, according to an announcement made today by Jay Hutton, VSBLTY co-founder and CEO. Launched in 2016, Microsoft created its co-sell ready initiative under its Microsoft One program to provide comprehensive sales and marketing support for select partners. To be eligible for the go-to-market program, independent software vendors must submit customer references that demonstrate successful projects and meet a performance commitment in addition to passing sales and technology assessments. VSBLTY technology provides customer audience measurement using the power of machine learning through computer vision. Its industry leading VisionCaptor and DataCaptor combine motion graphics and interactive brand messaging with first of its kind Facialanalytics .

You are not about to surrender your life and understanding of the world to machines. That head of yours with its conscious mind, reading this column, remains in the driving seat and always will. It's true that the capacity of machines to supplement human intelligence, monitor us, mimic us and replace routine jobs and tasks is exploding and in the wrong hands could represent a step change in creating dark forms of economic and social control. But that is the battle for democracy, with the confrontation of the worst of capitalism taking on a new dimension. It does not mean that the end of human life is nigh – it means we have to be cleverer in fashioning responses.