Google's decision to cut-off Huawei could be a death sentence for the Chinese tech giant and expose its customers to a host of cyber-security issues, an expert has said.

Eoin Keary, CEO of cyber-security firm Edgescan, told MailOnline that this hammer-blow could spell 'the beginning of the end' for Huawei.  The inability for users to update their apps is a serious issue as they will rapidly become outdated and vulnerable, he revealed.

Google has remaining tight-lipped about what this will mean for Huawei users, but existing phones will likely forever be stuck with their current version of some apps.  This includes serious security flaws which are fixed via Google's update on the Play Store and will not be available to Huawei devices, leaving them exposed.

Will my Huawei device keep working?  

Huawei devices will largely continue to function as before in the short-term, but they will soon get left behind.  Google said existing devices will have access to the Play Store but there is no timeline on how long this will last.

A Google spokesperson said: 'We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications.  For users of our services, Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices.'

This means that, at least for now, apps and downloads, as well as protection via Google's Play Protect, will remain in place.  But it has already stopped updates via the app, which will rapidly manifest itself into a growing problem.

What will happen if Google releases an update?

Existing customers of Huawei's technology still have access to the Play Store but not its updates.  This means users on other Android platforms, such as LG and Samsung, will have access to the update - but Huawei customers will not.  All major and minor updates from the Play Store will therefore bypass Huawei, including any security patches.

'Updates to the next version of apps will also be restricted.  If you have a Huawei phone, you won’t get security updates.  Huawei could be a very, very insecure device as updates are not available and millions and millions of users will be increasingly less secure.' Mr Keary said.

For example, it was revealed last week that an Israeli firm was using a WhatsApp vulnerability to spy on people via the app and their phones.  A fix was found and issued to Android users via the Play Store - absolving customers of any risk.  However, if this had happened after today's bombshell, it would have been impossible for people to fix the problem.

'Update frequency of Android, not just of major releases but of minor updates as well, is rapid and almost all of them fix a vulnerability.  The risk of infection gets dramatically higher now for Huawei devices and they may stop working soon.  For me, this is the beginning of the end for Huawei.  Security is often taken for granted and if security is removed and phones become insecure, will people put all their personal belongings on their phones?'

What will it mean for future Huawei customers?   

The picture is murkier for any customers buying Huawei devices in the future but new Huawei phones will not have access to Gmail, Google Maps and other apps.

Google has yet to issue a statement on what the implications will be for new users but it is possible their access to Play Store will be revoked.  The security concerns worsen as time progresses and the versions of the apps on the platform become more and more outdated.  This potentially exposes anything that is on a device to hackers and potential criminals - and there is little a user can do to prevent it.

Mr Keary said: 'Phones are incredible personal devices, even more so than our desktops, and people will now be less willing to trust Huawei with this information.  Six months is a lifetime in cyber security, and if the operating system is not being maintained then there is a very serious risk to all the personal data.  I don't see a reason to buy a Huawei device if it cannot use an official version of android.'

What does the Google decision mean for Huawei? 

The Android system is used by a host of manufacturers, including LG, Samsung and Sony, among others.  All rely on Google's Play Store and their own license to keep up to date with the latest developments.

Google has said that, at least for now, customers will still have access to Google Play Store, and all the usual Google apps like Gmail, Google Maps, Search, Assistant.   Existing phones will still have the apps, but users will not be able to upgrade to newer versions.

'In effect, they [Google] will not deploy their apps to Huawei good and proper and access to Google Play and other Google apps will be restricted,' Mr Keary said.

Google's engineers are also banned from collaborating with Huawei engineers on any updates.

Mr Keary added: 'Huawei has said it plans to build its own features from the open-source material, but that's a huge mountain to climb.  This builds on the 5G issues it has faced and powers in the western world want to take Huawei out of the picture and this is a good way of doing that.'

Google said it was taking 'steps to comply with recent government actions' after President Donald Trump added Huawei to a US blacklist.  Google's lack of willing to discuss the topic indicated the firm is still wrangling with how best to move forward.

A Google spokesperson said: 'We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications.  For users of our services, Google Play and the security protections from Google Play Protect will continue to function on existing Huawei devices.'

Google Play Protect is a system which is built-in to Android devices and scans automatically for malware and signs of infection.   Its indication that this will continue to operate on Huawei devices offers customers with at least some good news, but there is no indication of how long this will continue.

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Ivy-league researchers say secrecy played a role in the 2016 election in at least one definitive way and it doesn't necessarily have to do with the actions of candidates.

According to a new study from Columbia University that surveyed 1,000 voters, people who cast their ballots for President Donald Trump in a 2016 race against candidate Hilary Clinton were twice as likely to keep their choice 'secret.'

The study, titled 'Motivated Secrecy: Politics, Relationships, and Regrets,' found that of the respondents, 53 per cent who kept their ballots hidden from friends and relatives voted for Trump while 27 per cent voted for Clinton.

One of the driving factors behind the secrecy of Trump voters' decision, say authors Michael Slepian, Rachel McDonald, Jessica Salerno, and Katharine Greenaway, was their reputation.

'Because concern with one’s reputation is a fundamental social motive, people might worry that revealing undesired behaviors could damage their reputation in their own eyes or the eyes of others,' reads the study.  Specifically, as Slepian told Yahoo News: 'Trump voters were more concerned about their reputation than Clinton supporters.'

Before and during the campaign, Trump was often noted for his brash and sometimes offensive actions, which included mocking a disabled reporter and bragging about how he was allowed to grab models 'by the p****' in taped audio with television host, Billy Bush.  To avoid being associated with those statements and actions among their peers, researchers say some voters chose to keep their political preference hidden.

The likelihood of whether someone was more likely to secretly vote for Trump also correlated to where they sat on the political spectrum, say researchers.  Those voters who identified as more conservative were more likely to be open in their support while 'moderates' tended to hide the decision.

'The more conservative our participants, the less they regretted keeping their vote secret.  Perhaps conservative participants were satisfied with their vote, given the outcome of the election,' the authors said.

According to the study, reputation was not the only motivator behind the disparity in 'secret' votes, however.  Another driving factor is what researchers referred to as 'social harmony.'  Respondents in the analysis also showed evidence that they had withheld information on which candidate they voted for in an attempt to avoid confrontation with others who may not have shared the same views.

'People might anticipate that being honest about their preferences, feelings, or behavior with a close other could cause tension if it conflicts with the other’s value system.  That is, people might think they are doing the other person a service by not being forthright,' according to the report.

'People generally seek to avoid conflict.  Secret keepers might be trying to avoid the aggression and unpleasantness that results from discussing topics with people who have different attitudes,' it continued.

This seems to mirror a study conducted by Pew Research in 2018 that showed respondents felt it was more 'stressful' to discuss politics with people they disagreed with.  That study also shows that the feeling resonated most prominently with Democrats, 57 per cent of which characterized discussing politics with people that have disparate views as 'frustrating' and 'stressful.'  That figure was up 45 per cent compared to two years prior to the study.

Among other things, researchers say their most recent analysis could help to explain a disconnect between polls leading up to the election and the actual results.  Polling just prior to the election had Clinton's chances of winning at 95 per cent.

If sentiments are similar to 2016, pollsters say that Trump's support may be similarly underestimated, especially when it comes to how the President is stacking up against Democratic Candidate and former Vice President, Joe Biden, who is outpacing Trump in some early polling.

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It could be the perfect answer for people who fight over the thermostat in the office or at home.  Scientists have created an armband which works as a 'personal thermostat' to keep people who are always warm or cold at a constant temperature.  The patch inside works for more than eight hours and can lower someone's skin temperature by up to 10C (50F).

Its inventors say it is a simpler solution than central heating or air conditioning, which have to change the temperature of an entire building to keep a few people comfortable.  That creates arguments when one person who is always cold turns the thermostat up, leaving others sweating.

The armband works using thermoelectric alloys - materials which use electricity to create a temperature difference - sandwiched between heat-conducting stretchy sheets and connected to a small battery pack.  Tested on one person at background temperatures ranging from 22 to 36C (72 to 97F), it stayed at a constant 32C (90F).

Professor Chen, who led the study from the University of California San Diego, said: 'This type of device can improve your personal thermal comfort whether you are commuting on a hot day or feeling too cold in your office.  If wearing this device can make you feel comfortable within a wider temperature range, you won't need to turn down the thermostat as much in the summer or crank up the heat as much in the winter.'

More than 10 per cent of the energy consumed globally goes on heating and cooling buildings, which makes a personal thermostat the holy grail.  But the options for this are few, including clothes with built-in fans or bulky vests with circulating coolant and water packs.

Researchers built their patch by taking small pillars of thermoelectric materials, soldering them to thin copper strips of electrodes and putting them between the two stretchy elastomer sheets.  An electric current from the battery moves across the pillars, driving heat from one sheet to the other.  If the heat goes to the sheet closest to someone's skin, they warm up.  If it is transferred to the sheet furthest away, warmth is removed from their skin and they cool down.  The flexible, lightweight square-shaped patch is five centimetres (two inches) in diameter.

The researchers, writing in the journal Science Advances, estimate about 100 of them are needed in a vest to cover parts of the body like the back and neck which are at risk of overheating or getting cold.  This would use an estimated 26 watts of power on a hot day, which is less than half of what a laptop needs.  However it would still cost hundreds of pounds to manufacture - a cost which researchers hope they can bring down with further research.

On a male volunteer, the patch achieved its target temperature in two minutes and stayed there.  It is hoped to be available commercially in a few years.

Professor Chen said: 'We've solved the fundamental problems, now we're tackling the big engineering issues - the electronics, hardware, and developing a mobile app to control the temperature.'

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

U.S. Navy pilots and sailors won't be considered crazy for reporting unidentified flying objects, under new rules meant to encourage them to keep track of what they see.  Yet just a few years ago, the Pentagon reportedly shut down another official program that investigated UFO sightings.  What has changed?  Is the U.S. military finally coming around to the idea that alien spacecraft are visiting our planet?

The answer to that question is almost certainly no.  Humans' misinterpretations of observations of natural phenomena are as old as time and include examples such as manatees being seen as mermaids and driftwood in a Scottish loch being interpreted as a monster.

A more recent and relevant example is the strange luminescent structure in the sky caused by a SpaceX rocket launch.  In these types of cases, incorrect interpretations occur because people have incomplete information or misunderstand what they're seeing.

Based on my prior experience as a science advisor to the Air Force, I believe that the Pentagon wants to avoid this type of confusion, so it needs to better understand flying objects that it can't now identify.

During a military mission, whether in peace or in war, if a pilot or soldier can't identify an object, they have a serious problem: How should they react, without knowing if it is neutral, friendly or threatening?  Fortunately, the military can use advanced technologies to try to identify strange things in the sky.

Taking the 'U' out of 'UFO'

'Situational awareness' is the military term for having complete understanding of the environment in which you are operating.  A UFO represents a gap in situational awareness.  At the moment, when a Navy pilot sees something strange during flight, just about the only thing he or she can do is ask other pilots and air traffic control what they saw in that place at that time.

Globally, the number of UFO reports in a year has peaked at more than 8,000.  It's not known how many the military experiences.  Even the most heavily documented incidents end up unresolved, despite interviewing dozens of witnesses and reviewing many written documents, as well as lots of audio and video recordings.

UFOs represent an opportunity for the military to improve its identification processes.  At least some of that work could be done in the future by automated systems, and potentially in real time as an incident unfolds.

Military vehicles – Humvees, battleships, airplanes and satellites alike – are covered in sensors.  It's not just passive devices like radio receivers, video cameras and infrared imagers, but active systems like radar, sonar and lidar.  In addition, a military vehicle is rarely alone – vehicles travel in convoys, sail in fleets and fly in formations.  Above them all are satellites watching from overhead.

Drawing a complete picture

Sensors can provide a wealth of information on UFOs including range, speed, heading, shape, size and temperature.  With so many sensors and so much data, though, it is a challenge to merge the information into something useful.

However, the military is stepping up its work on autonomy and artificial intelligence.  One possible use of these new technologies could be to combine them to analyze all the many signals as they come in from sensors, separating any observations that it can't identify.  In those cases, the system could even assign sensors on nearby vehicles or orbiting satellites to collect additional information in real time.  Then it could assemble an even more complete picture.

For the moment, though, people will need to weigh in on what all the data reveal.  That's because a key challenge for any successful use of artificial intelligence is building trust or confidence in the system.  For example, in a famous experiment by Google scientists, an advanced image recognition algorithm based on artificial intelligence was fooled into wrongly identifying a photo of a panda as a gibbon simply by distorting a small number of the original pixels.

So, until humans understand UFOs better, we won't be able to teach computers about them.  In my view, the Navy's new approach to reporting UFO encounters is a good first step.  This may eventually lead to a comprehensive, fully integrated approach for object identification involving the fusion of data from many sensors through the application of artificial intelligence and autonomy.  Only then will there be fewer and fewer UFOs in the sky – because they won't be unidentified anymore.

By IAIN BOYD FOR THE CONVERSATION

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Artificial intelligence has become exceedingly advanced in recent years, so much so that the prospect of self-driving cars on city roads is no longer a far-off concept.  But despite their current capabilities, there's one thing humans have on our side that AI inherently doesn't have – fear.  Physiological responses driven by fear help humans make critical decisions and stay on our toes, especially when it comes to situations like driving.

In a new study, Microsoft researchers build on this idea to improve the decision-making skills of self-driving cars, in effort to develop 'visceral machines' that will learn faster and make fewer mistakes.  The team detailed their findings in a paper presented at the 2019 International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR).

To teach AI to 'feel' fear, the researchers used pulse sensors to track peoples' arousal while using a driving simulator.  These signals were then fed to the algorithm to learn which situations caused a person's pulse to spike.

Authors Daniel McDuff and Ashish Kapoor explain in the paper's abstract: 'As people learn to navigate the world, autonomic nervous system (e.g., "fight or flight") responses provide intrinsic feedback about the potential consequence of action choices (e.g., becoming nervous when close to a cliff edge or driving fast around a bend.).  Physiological changes are correlated with these biological preparations to protect one-self from danger.'

According to the researchers, teaching the algorithm when a person might feel more anxious in a given situation could serve as a guide to help machines avoid risks.

'Our hypothesis is that such reward functions can circumvent the challenges associated with sparse and skewed rewards in reinforcement learning settings and can help improve sample efficiency,' the team explains.

The researchers put the autonomous software through a simulated maze filled with walls and ramps to see how they performed with fear instilled in them.  And, compared to an AI that was trained based only on wall proximity, the system that had learned fear was much less likely to crash.

The researchers wrote: 'A major advantage of training a reward on a signal correlated with the sympathetic nervous system responses is that the rewards are non-sparse - the negative reward starts to show up much before the car collides.  This leads to efficiency in training and with proper design can lead to policies that are also aligned with the desired mission.'

But, there are caveats.  The researchers note: 'While emotions are important for decision-making, they can also detrimentally effect decisions in certain contexts.  Future work will consider how to balance intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and include extensions to representations that include multiple intrinsic drives (such as hunger, fear and pain).'

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

A troubling new study has highlighted the harmful stereotypes targeting women who drink alcohol, regardless of their actual behavior.

In a series of experiments involving nearly 400 participants, both men and women, researchers found that simply holding an alcoholic beverage is enough for people to view a woman in a negative light.  Women seen holding a beer bottle as opposed to a bottle of water were perceived as more intoxicated, 'less human,' and more 'sexually available.'  For men doing the same, however, this was not the case.

The researchers behind the study say the findings have 'troubling implications' for the perception and treatment of women in social settings, suggesting people may be less likely to intervene in situations where a woman may be at risk.

Jeanine Skorinko, professor of social science and policy studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute said: 'While we predicted that women drinking alcohol would be dehumanized more than women drinking water or men drinking alcohol, it was still surprising to see it emerge.  This is especially shocking because just holding a beer bottle increased perceptions of intoxication and perceptions of sexual availability for women, but not for men.  Moreover, it didn't matter who the perceiver was – male and female perceivers dehumanized women drinking alcohol similarly.'

In the study, the team set up three experiments in which participants were shown an image of a young person (male or female) standing at a bar holding either a bottle of beer or a bottle of water.  A total of 398 participants were involved – 207 men and 191 women, at an average age of 34.

Each participant was asked to evaluate how drunk they thought the person in the image was using a 7-point scale that included 'intoxicated,' 'tipsy,' 'buzzed,' and 'drunk.'  They were also asked to rate how 'human' the person appeared, with options including 'mechanical,' 'cold like a robot,' or 'lack self-restraint like an animal.'

In the final experiment, they were given additional information as might be seen in a social media post, such as '4 drinks in! ha ha keep it coming! Hooray for the weekend!'

While the stereotypes surrounding women who consume alcohol are well known, the researchers say the findings uncovered in the study were 'shocking.'

Both men and women dehumanized the women they'd seen holding an alcoholic beverage, and had a tendency to perceive female drinkers are more sexually available.

While the study didn't directly examine sexual aggression, the researchers say the findings point to the worrying implication that those who perceive women this way may also be more aggressive toward them.  And, by assuming women who drink are more open to sexual encounters, others may be less likely to intervene if she is sexually victimized.

Undergraduate co-author Anastasia Karapanagou said: 'Nowadays, a low of social interactions happen in the presence of alcohol and it is important to understand how this may influence the development of healthy relationships.'

Skorinko said: 'This research allows us to better understand how women who drink alcohol are perceived, and while these perceptions are quite negative, they give insights into how to move forward.  By having this deeper understanding, hopefully we can start to increase awareness of these issues and reduce the victimization of women – whether they are drinking or not.'

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

German air taxi startup Lilium has announced the first test flight of its full-scale, all-electric five-seater air taxi.  The company, which has built the jet-powered flying car, flew an unmanned test flight of its vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) system in May.  It was the latest in a series of successful tests from various companies in the electric flight industry indicating that we could be seeing flying cars in the skies soon.

The jet has 36 engines which allow it to take off vertically, and has a maximum top speed of 300 kmph and a range of 80 miles.  According to the tech firm, its flying taxi would allow users to travel from London to Manchester in less than an hour.

The Lilium jet, which can operate with a pilot or in drone mode, is a relatively simple design - with no tail, no rudder, no propellers and no gearbox.  This has allowed the design team to focus on more passenger-friendly features, including panoramic windows and gull-wing doors.

They hope to have a fleet of the systems flying in cities worldwide by 2025, providing a flying taxi service, similar to Uber.  Passengers would book a taxi from a local landing strip or purpose-built landing pad, to fly them on short haul trips, according to the firm.

In a video provided by the company, Lilium's unpiloted aircraft can be seen taking off vertically like a helicopter, hovering briefly, and then landing.  Although it may seem like a small step, the successful flight already puts them much farther than many of its competitors who are also building electric aircraft.

Remo Gerber, chief commercial officer at Lilium said: 'We have been working on this test for the last 20 months.  Just on the takeoff and landing.  What will come next is a test flight programme that will put it through its paces to get certified.'

Mr Gerber would not provide any details about the jets weight capacity, but he insisted that it will eventually be able to carry five passengers and a pilot.

Lilium's 'payload ratio is industry-leading, and that's what is going to make the difference,' he told the Verge.

The firm claim to have built aircraft in under two years, having grown its team from just 30 people in 2017 to more than 300.  This follows an injection of $90m from investing giants such as China's Tencent and venture capital firm Atomico.

Other companies are also looking to launch their own flying taxi service.  Uber has promised it will launch a fleet of air taxis in a pilot project in Dallas and Los Angeles by 2023 and Boeing is also building its own electric flying taxi aircraft.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk

Security researchers have discovered a new set of flaws in Intel processors that could leave users exposed to cyber-attacks akin to those caused by the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities.  The attack variants include Fallout, RIDL and ZombieLoad, the last of which appears to be the most critical and operates by exploiting a design flaw in Intel chips to leak sensitive user data.  Chips made by Advanced Micro Devices and ARM Holdings are not affected by this latest vulnerability.  However, it impacts 'almost every computer' with an Intel processor going back as early as 2011, according to TechCrunch.  Users can check to see if they've been affected using an online tool created by the researchers.

The flaws were discovered by a team of researchers from Austrian university TU Graz, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the University of Michigan, the University of Adelaide, KU Leuven in Belgium, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Germany's Saarland University and a number of security firms.

Intel also announced the vulnerabilities in a blog post published on 14 May, referring to the set as Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS): 'Under certain conditions, MDS provides a program the potential means to read data that program otherwise would not be able to see.  Practical exploitation of MDS is a very complex undertaking.  MDS does not, by itself, provide an attacker with a way to choose the data that is leaked.'

Intel said it will ship future processors with the necessary hardware changes to address these vulnerabilities.  The chip giant added that it has already begun rolling out updates to operating system and hypervisor software as a fix for the flaws.

ZombieLoad takes advantage of a design flaw in Intel chips that's similar to what caused the Meltdown and Spectre flaws.  It exploits a process called 'speculative execution,' wherein a processor works to predict what operations or data an application or system may need in the future, TechCrunch noted.

With these new attacks, they target the 'buffers' between a chip's components.  Hackers trick the user of a computer being powered by a targeted chip into falling prey, whether by accessing a malicious application or some other means.

The attacks bypass security mechanisms in Intel's speculative execution systems to siphon off sensitive data being transmitted in the chip, such as passwords, keys, account tokens or private messages, according to TechCrunch.

'In the split second between the command and the check, using this new form of attack we can see the pre-loaded data from other programs,' security researcher Daniel Gruss said in a statement.

Many pointed out that hackers have no control over what data is being transmitted in a chip at a given time, so it's possible that the attack wouldn't return any worthwhile data.  If they were to carry out the attack repeatedly, however, hackers would most likely come away with some sensitive data.

Users are recommended to update their devices in order to make sure they're safeguarded from any possible attacks made possible by the flaw.  Apple, Google and Microsoft have all released patches for users to download, TechCrunch noted.

Systems running macOS Mojave 10.14.5 have already been patched and the company intends to issue fixes for Sierra and High Sierra versions as well.

Chrome OS devices are protected from attacks and many other Google products and services require no updates to be installed by the user.

Microsoft will release software updates through Windows Update.

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The first female astronaut to step foot on the moon could do so in as little as five years from now.  NASA has revealed its upcoming moon mission, which is currently tied to an ambitious 2024 deadline, will be led by both male and female astronauts for the first time.

Speaking at the Human to Mars Summit in Washington DC on 14 May, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine explained that the current crop of astronauts is 'very diverse,' unlike in past decades, and will show the public that 'opportunities like this are available to everybody in America.'  Seeing the first woman land on the moon in the foreseeable future will inspire a new generation of young girls, the NASA chief said.

The agency has chosen to call the mission Artemis in a nod to this decision and to past missions alike; Artemis is the mythical Greek lunar goddess and twin sister of Apollo.

Jim Bridenstine said the history of moon landings shows little opportunities were offered to women.  But, things have finally begun to change.

Bridenstine said during the summit: 'I have an 11-year-old daughter and I want her to be able to see herself in the same way that our current very diverse astronaut corps sees itself.  And if we look at the history of moon landings, it was test pilots from the 1960s and 1970s, fighter pilots, and there were no opportunities for women back then.  This program is going to enable a new generation of young girls like my daughter to see themselves in a way that maybe they wouldn't otherwise see themselves.'

Mr Bridenstine has previously said President Trump's desire to put humans back on the moon by the year 2024 would provide an opportunity to test technology and capabilities before carrying out a mission to land on Mars by 2033.

He told the summit: 'What we are trying to do is create as much of the architecture as possible so that it can be replicated for our eventual human mission to Mars.  So again, we are accelerating the path to get to the moon.  We want to be there, no kidding, by 2024.  That accelerates our eventual Mars missions as well.  But the first step is getting to the moon.  We have to learn how to live and work on another world for long periods of time.'

He added: 'The president has granted us 1.6 billion additional dollars, that didn't come from the science mission directorate, it didn't come from the International Space Station – 1.6 billion additional dollars for our acceleration of the lunar program so that we can get the next man and the first woman to the surface of the moon.  That's important.  When we accelerate the lunar program, we are, by definition, accelerating the humans to Mars program.  That's what we're doing.'

The last manned Moon landing happened in 1972, as part of the Apollo 17 mission.  There have only been six times that astronauts have walked on the Moon, all of which were carried out by NASA as part of its Apollo program.  The aptly-named Artemis mission will build off these past efforts and push lunar exploration to new heights.

Bridenstine tweeted ahead of the summit: 'Our #Moon2024 mission is being named after Artemis, who was a sister to Apollo and goddess of the Moon.  We're excited to be landing the first woman and next man on the surface of the Moon by 2024.'

On Monday, Mr Trump tweeted: 'Under my Administration, we are restoring @NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars.'

In closing remarks at the DC event, Bridenstine added: 'We've had the conversation about my 11-year-old daughter.  I'm sure there's people in this room that have their own daughters and want them to see themselves in this role in the future.  Not that everybody's going to be an astronaut, but people need to understand that opportunities like this are available to everybody in America.'

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San Francisco supervisors approved a ban on police using facial recognition technology, making it the first city in the U.S. with such a restriction.

The ban is part of broader oversight legislation that orders San Francisco departments to spell out details of any surveillance currently in use and any surveillance they hope to use.  Departments will need to get board approval to continue using or acquiring technology.

The vote was 8 to 1, with Supervisor Catherine Stefanie saying she could not vote for legislation that was well-intentioned, but could compromise public safety.

San Francisco supervisors are considering surveillance oversight legislation that includes a ban on the use of facial recognition technology by police.  A second vote will be held the following week, when it could officially become a law if it gets the board's approval.

The face ID ban would apply to city departments, but not to personal, business or federal use.

Privacy advocates have squared off with public safety proponents at several heated hearings in San Francisco, a city teeming with tech innovation and the home of Twitter, Airbnb and Uber.

Those who support the ban say facial recognition technology is not only flawed, but a serious threat to civil rights.

Opponents say the police need help catching criminals.

Extracted from: www.dailymail.co.uk