Huawei has helped Chinese authorities create surveillance technology that targets the country's Uyghur minority population, an investigation has alleged. A series of marketing presentation slides reviewed by the Washington Post found Huawei had a role in developing surveillance projects created in a partnership with other Chinese companies. They included analysis of voice recordings, monitoring detention centres, tracking locations of political individuals of interest, police surveillance in the western Xinjiang region, and corporate tracking of employees and customers. While the slides did not specify who the presentations were for, the report said some of them showcased surveillance functions specific to police or government agencies, which suggests Chinese government authorities may have been the intended audience. Huawei said it had no knowledge of the projects mentioned in the Washington Post report.

It's becoming easier all the time to read signals from the human brain: Tesla founder Elon Musk's company Neuralink just this summer announced that human trials will move forward next year for an implantable device that can read a user's mind; scientists at UCSF recently released the results of a brain activity study, backed by Facebook, that shows it's possible to use brain-wave technology to decode speech; in 2018, Nissan unveiled Brain-to-Vehicle technology that would allow vehicles to interpret signals from the driver's brain; and Nielsen is already using neuroscience to capture nonconscious aspects of consumer decision-making. There will be good and bad outcomes. Recently, we've talked about how high tech can help the blind see and amputees feel by reading brain signals directly. A mind-controlled robotic "arm" can help sufferers from movement disorders with the tasks of daily living. One workplace use is to monitor drowsiness in, for example, the operators of high-speed trains.