Year: 2018

The UK is currently mulling a lot of new regulations around drones, aimed at clamping down on consumer use ahead of a seemingly inevitable explosion. Among a deluge of proposal is age restriction, banning use of drones weighing more than 0.55 pounds by anyone under the age of 18.

That proposed age limit would be three years younger than the age restriction on applying for a full plane or helicopter license. In the case of the proposed drone restriction, however, kids could potentially still fly a drone, so long as they do so with adult supervision.

The proposed legislation follows similar laws put in place in the U.S., where an FAA-imposed drone registry has been the source of a protracted legal back and forth. The U.K. has imposed some rules as well, restricting the height of consumer drone flights (400 feet), and banning flights near airports.

Recent proposals in the U.K. include the use of anti-drone technology around selected events and locations, and mandating that users file flight plans in designated apps before take off. Drone advocacy groups are pushing back on the proposal naturally. While certain regulation seems like a no-brainer, there’s a suggestion that limiting the age of use is a step too far and perhaps counterproductive.

“We’ve got to promote the safe and responsible use of drones, but children are the future of the drone world, so it’s also important they can have access to drones and use them,” Gabin Wishart of the Association of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems told the BBC. “The drone industry is expected to be a large part of the economy going forward so you don’t want to stop kids from exploring that.”

While artificial intelligence was once heralded as the key to unlocking a new era of economic prosperity, policymakers today face a wave of calls to ensure AI is fair, ethical and safe. New York City Mayor de Blasio recently announced the formation of the nation’s first task force to monitor and assess the use of algorithms. Days later, the European Union enacted sweeping new data protection rules that require companies be able to explain to consumers any automated decisions. And high-profile critics, like Elon Musk, have called on policymakers to do more to regulate AI.

Unfortunately, the two most popular ideas — requiring companies to disclose the source code to their algorithms and explain how they make decisions — would cause more harm than good by regulating the business models and the inner workings of the algorithms of companies using AI, rather than holding these companies accountable for outcomes.

The first idea — “algorithmic transparency” — would require companies to disclose the source code and data used in their AI systems. Beyond its simplicity, this idea lacks any real merits as a wide-scale solution. Many AI systems are too complex to fully understand by looking at source code alone. Some AI systems rely on millions of data points and thousands of lines of code, and decision models can change over time as they encounter new data. It is unrealistic to expect even the most motivated, resource-flush regulators or concerned citizens to be able to spot all potential malfeasance when that system’s developers may be unable to do so either.

Additionally, not all companies have an open-source business model. Requiring them to disclose their source code reduces their incentive to invest in developing new algorithms, because it invites competitors to copy them. Bad actors in China, which is fiercely competing with the United States for AI dominance but routinely flouts intellectual property rights, would likely use transparency requirements to steal source code.

The other idea — “algorithmic explainability” — would require companies to explain to consumers how their algorithms make decisions. The problem with this proposal is that there is often an inescapable trade-off between explainability and accuracy in AI systems. An algorithm’s accuracy typically scales with its complexity, so the more complex an algorithm is, the more difficult it is to explain. While this could change in the future as research into explainable AI matures — DARPA devoted $75 million in 2017 to this problem — for now, requirements for explainability would come at the cost of accuracy. This is enormously dangerous. With autonomous vehicles, for example, is it more important to be able to explain an accident or avoid one? The cases where explanations are more important than accuracy are rare.

Rather than demanding companies reveal their source code or limiting the types of algorithms they can use, policymakers should instead insist on algorithmic accountability — the principle that an algorithmic system should employ a variety of controls to ensure the operator (i.e. the party responsible for deploying the algorithm) can verify it acts as intended, and identify and rectify harmful outcomes should they occur.

A policy framework built around algorithmic accountability would have several important benefits. First, it would make operators responsible for any harms their algorithms might cause, not developers. Not only do operators have the most influence over how algorithms impact society, but they already have to comply with a variety of laws designed to make sure their decisions don’t cause harm. For example, employers must comply with anti-discrimination laws in hiring, regardless of whether they use algorithms to make those decisions.

Second, holding operators accountable for outcomes rather than the inner workings of algorithms would free them to focus on the best methods to ensure their algorithms do not cause harm, such as confidence measures, impact assessments or procedural regularity, where appropriate. For example, a university could conduct an impact assessment before deploying an AI system designed to predict which students are likely to drop out to ensure it is effective and equitable. Unlike transparency or explainability requirements, this would enable the university to effectively identify any potential flaws without prohibiting the use of complex, proprietary algorithms.

This is not to say that transparency and explanations do not have their place. Transparency requirements, for example, make sense for risk-assessment algorithms in the criminal justice system. After all, there is a long-standing public interest in requiring the judicial system be exposed to the highest degree of scrutiny possible, even if this transparency may not shed much light on how advanced machine-learning systems work.

Similarly, laws like the Equal Credit Opportunity Act require companies to provide consumers an adequate explanation for denying them credit. Consumers will still have a right to these explanations regardless of whether a company uses AI to make its decisions.

The debate about how to make AI safe has ignored the need for a nuanced, targeted approach to regulation, treating algorithmic transparency and explainability like silver bullets without considering their many downsides. There is nothing wrong with wanting to mitigate the potential harms AI poses, but the oversimplified, overbroad solutions put forth so far would be largely ineffective and likely do more harm than good. Algorithmic accountability offers a better path toward ensuring organizations use AI responsibly so that it can truly be a boon to society.

Last May, Google launched a new events feature designed to help web searchers more easily find things to do nearby, while also challenging Facebook’s dominance in the local events space. Today, Google is updating event search with personalized event suggestions, and well as a new design that puts more event information directly in the search results.

When the feature first launched last year, Google said it was built in response to the millions of search queries the company saw daily for finding local events and activities.

However, it was also clearly an area where Google had ceded ground to Facebook. The social network said last fall that 100 million people were using Facebook Events on a daily basis, and 650 million were using it across the network. Those numbers have surely grown since.

The original design for Google’s events search offered web searchers a list of events they could filter by category and date. Meanwhile, the event listings themselves were powered by data from Eventbrite, Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, Meetup, Vividseats, Jambase, LiveNation, Burbio, Allevents.in, Bookmyshow.com, StubHub, Bandsintown, Yext and Eventful.

Now, Google is returning these event results in a new format – instead of more standard search results, they appear as cards, each with a little bookmark icon you can click on to save the event details for future reference.

In addition, when you tap on one of the event listings’ cards, you’re directed to a more information-rich page, offering the date, time, location, and shortcuts to save the event, buy tickets, get directions, or share it with others. The design looks even more like a Facebook event page, albeit without a discussion section for posts and comments.

Clicking on the “Get Tickets” button will pop up a window that links to ticket resellers for the event in question – like Ticketmaster or StubHub, for example.

As users continue to click, browse and save events, the system will also be trained to know what sort of events users like.

This data will be used to power the new personalized recommendations feature, found in the bottom navigation bar’s “For You” tab, which organizes suggested events by category, like “concerts,” “festivals,” “shows,” free events, and more. This page will also show you trending and popular events in the area, if you need ideas.

The feature is not currently live for everyone, but is rolling out to mobile users over the next few days, says Google.

Virgin Galactic is celebrating the third successful supersonic test flight of VSS Unity, the passenger spacecraft it intends to make available for space tourism in the near future. This flight took the craft higher and faster than ever, stressing the system and providing useful data for the rocket plane’s engineers.

Virgin’s two-part flight system uses a traditional jet-powered plane, the WhiteKnightTwo-class VMS Eve, to carry the spacecraft up to about 45,000 feet, after which the latter detaches and zooms ahead (and upward) on rocket power.

Each of Unity’s flights has pushed its specs a bit further: The first one, in April, achieved Mach 1.6 and just over 84,000 feet of altitude. The second, in May, hit Mach 1.9 and reached 114,500 feet.

Today’s went to Mach 2 and got up to 170,000 feet, touching the Earth’s mesosphere before gliding down to a soft landing. It’s still not nearly to space; the Karman Line, where space “officially” begins, is about twice as high. But at this rate it sure just seems like a matter of time before they get up there.

Importantly, the rocket powering Unity’s flight burned this time for 42 seconds, well over the 30 seconds or so it’s been fired for until now. These tests necessarily have to advance degree by degree, but going from 30 to 42 is a big jump that the engineers are probably thrilled about.

“Having been a U2 pilot and done a lot of high altitude work, or what I thought was high altitude work, the view from 170,000 feet was just totally amazing,” said one of the pilots, Mike “Sooch” Masucci, in a Virgin Galactic press release. “The flight was exciting and frankly beautiful. We were able to complete a large number of test points which will give us good insight as we progress to our goal of commercial service.”

The team is working on analyzing the data from this flight, and of course inspecting and tweaking the spacecraft, and we can probably expect another test flight in the next few months.

Editor’s note: This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and TechCrunch may earn affiliate commissions.

One of the many ways to take full advantage of the summer is by attending long-awaited happenings and events. Summer festivals of all sorts come around every year, and they’re even better with a few friends — plus some extras to make the experience more memorable. No matter the type of event, having gear that allows you to kick back, keeps you hydrated and powered makes any festival day worthwhile.

Photo: Kimber Streams                                                                                                                                                                                  

Inflatable couch: Live Infinitely Inflatable Air Lounger

For music festivals and events that have areas for camping or lounging (while waiting for the band you actually came to see), an inflatable couch will come in handy. The Live Infinitely Inflatable Air Lounger is 7 feet long, so it’s big enough to sit three people, or for one person to stretch out.

It comes with a stake to keep it from blowing away when it’s not in use, stays inflated longer than other couches we tested and folds down into a portable pack. Use its side pockets to store your phone, a water bottle and other belongings while you kick back and soak up the sun.

Instant Printer: Fujifilm Instax Share SP-2

Taking pictures to capture time spent at an exciting festival is a given. Though when attending with family or friends — especially those who you may not see often — having something tangible to take home makes the outing even better.

The Fujifilm Instax Share SP-2 is the instant printer pick in our instant camera guide, and we like that it’s portable and produces old-school Polaroid prints straight from a smartphone or tablet. It works through the Instax Share app and allows for filters and borders to be added to your snapshots. You can print one picture in about 10 seconds, or print multiples of one image for passing out to your group.

Lenses for iPhone Photography: Moment New Tele Lens & Moment New Wide Lens

When you get tired of taking group selfies and want to capture videos and pictures of the main event, a good smartphone lens attachment can help with getting closer to the action. While some smartphone cameras produce good photos, a lens attachment can further expand your phone’s field of view or extend the optical zoom without distorting images.

For photography enthusiasts who are fine attending events without a professional camera, our lens attachment picks for iPhones, the Moment New Tele Lens (for closer, high-quality shots) and the Moment New Wide Lens (for crisp, wide-angle photos) are great alternatives and offer more portability. They’re an improvement on the iPhone camera and are mounted on a case for lens attachments.

Kyle FItzgerald

USB Battery pack: Anker PowerCore 20100

Spending long days at a fair or similar event means your phone will likely run out of juice before you’re ready to go. Bringing along a USB battery pack ensures that you’ll be able to stay powered while you’re having fun — and long after when you need to round up friends or call a ride.

The is small enough to fit in a backpack or purse and it has enough power to charge one smartphone everyday for nearly a week. It also can simultaneously charge two USB devices at full speed and will keep them powered for days before the battery pack itself needs to be recharged.

Photo: Rozette Rago                                                               

Growler: Miir 64 oz. Growler

Since you can’t bring a fan or AC everywhere, it’s almost necessary to have a drink or two on hand when you’re outside in the heat for long periods of time. For events that allow outside beverages, carrying them in a growler is a great way to keep them fresh, cold or hot.

We put eight growlers to the test and the Miir 64 oz. Growler had the best-tasting beer and fizzy drinks. We like the Miir’s design and that it’s easy to drink from, seal and handle. Its lid can be fully detached, which makes cleaning it by hand a bit easier. With a 64 oz. capacity, you’ll have more than enough of your favorite drink to last throughout the day, or to share.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commissions.

Car2go, the free-floating car-sharing service owned by Daimler, launched in Chicago this week — the company’s 25th market globally. The car-sharing company, which lets customers rent out vehicles on a short-term basis, has been steadily expanding in the past several years, adding to and changing up its fleet beyond the diminutive Smart cars that were once the lone option for customers.

This launch stands out because it’s the first time in four years that car2go has added a U.S. city to its ranks. The last time car2go added a U.S. city was New York in 2014.

The car-sharing service has more than 3.3 million members worldwide, of which about 1 million are in the U.S. and Canada — a 25 percent growth over the prior year, according to the company. Today, the car-share service offers Mercedes-Benz CLA and GLA, as well as the two-door Smartfortwo vehicles.

Daimler was one of the first automakers to get into the car-sharing business. And others have followed, some of which have announced plans just in the past few months. In 2016, BMW’s ReachNow re-launched in North America and GM started Maven, which recently expanded its offerings to a peer-to-peer car-sharing service in Chicago, Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan. VW Group announced in July it will launch a car-sharing service next year in Germany that uses only electric vehicles, with plans to expand to other major cities in Europe, North America and Asia beginning in 2020. Volvo and Renault have also announced plans for a car-sharing service.

This automaker-jumps-into-car-sharing-story is indicative of a bigger trend within an auto industry grappling with how to earn money beyond the traditional business of building and selling cars. And this period of transition and experimentation isn’t likely to slow down.

If anything, expect more tinkering. For instance, Daimler announced Thursday it would break itself into three separate units — focused on trucks, its Mercedes-Benz car division and mobility — in a massive restructuring aimed at helping it keep pace with the emergence of automated and electric vehicles.

ProtonMail is arguably the easiest way to send end-to-end encrypted emails. But encryption only works by default with other ProtonMail users. The company is adding full PGP support so that you can send and receive encrypted emails with people who use other apps and services.

ProtonMail is pretty much like iMessage or WhatsApp, but for email. All communications between two users are seamlessly encrypted. It’s transparent for the end user as you don’t need to manage encryption keys yourself.

But encrypted emails have been around for longer than ProtonMail. OpenPGP-compliant apps let you encrypt and digitally sign emails before sending them, even if your recipient isn’t using the same app. On the recipient’s side, you can check the sender’s signature and decrypt the message.

But PGP requires that both senders and recipients know how to use the standard. There are many extensions and plugins to use PGP in email apps. And now, ProtonMail lets you manage PGP communications directly in its service.

ProtonMail was already using PGP in the background. But now, the service is exposing those features to advanced users. You can import PGP public keys for your contacts and export your own key to share it with others. Encryption and decryption is then fully automated.

In order to make that possible, ProtonMail is launching an API to fetch public key encryption keys from ProtonMail users. Many users put their PGP key on their Twitter profile or website. But if you already know the ProtonMail email address of your recipient, you can get it from your browser directly (https://api.protonmail.ch/pks/lookup?op=get&search=username@protonmail.com).

Finally, exposing public keys also enables a new feature — address verification. If a server gets compromised or there’s a Man-in-the-Middle attack, a person could send an email pretending to be you but with a completely different set of public and private keys.

If you’re handling highly sensitive information, you can now manually verify the address of a specific contact. For instance, if you’re meeting with a contact in person, this person can show you their public key so that you can check it against your inbox. If those two keys are identical, you can choose to trust this key for future communications.

This is an overkill for your vacation photos, but Edward Snowden would love this kind of feature. ProtonMail is keeping basic encryption features accessible while giving more control to power users. This is a great way to get started and learn more about PGP, public and private keys as well as best practices.

Tickets to the TechCrunch Summer Party at August Capital are on the verge of selling out. If you want to attend our 13^th annual summer fete on July 27, there’s no time to waste. Reserve your ticket right now.

This event draws an incredible mix of Silicon Valley’s startup community — a who’s who of founders, investors, tech makers, movers and shakers. It’s an excellent way to connect over cocktails and celebrate our shared entrepreneurial spirit in a relaxed atmosphere. And it all goes down on the beautiful grounds of August Capital in Menlo Park.

Here’s the basic when-where-and-how-much info you need to know:

• July 27, 5:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
• August Capital in Menlo Park
• Ticket price: $95

A quick reminder that if you have an early-stage startup, it’s not too late to buy a Summer Party demo table. It’s the perfect opportunity to showcase your business in front of all the right people in a casual, convivial atmosphere. Each demo table includes four Summer Party tickets. Learn more about demo tables here.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a TechCrunch event without door prizes to keep things interesting, including TechCrunch swag, Amazon Echos and tickets to Disrupt San Francisco 2018.

The TechCrunch Summer Party at August Capital is about to sell out. If you want to share a friendly evening of cocktails and relaxed networking in a beautiful setting with your startup peers, you need to buy your ticket today. We can’t wait to see you there!

Finally a little justice for the scammers who prey on the unsuspecting. Twenty four more phone scammers have been received prison sentences of up to 20 years for fraud and money laundering. The extent of their efforts was truly staggering.

One defendant, Miteshkumar Patel of Illinois received 240 months in prison followed by three years of probation. Patel, wrote the Department of Justice, “served as the manager of a Chicago-based crew of ‘runners’ that liquidated and laundered fraud proceeds generated by callers at India-based call centers.”

Those callers used call scripts and lead lists to target victims throughout the United States with telefraud schemes in which the callers impersonated U.S. government employees from the IRS and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The callers duped victims into believing that they owed money to the U.S. government and would be arrested or deported if they did not pay immediately. After the victims transferred money to the callers, a network of U.S.-based runners moved expeditiously to liquidate and launder fraud proceeds through the use of anonymous stored value cards. In addition to recruiting, training, and tasking runners in his crew, Patel also coordinated directly with the Indian side of the conspiracy about the operation of the scheme. Patel was held accountable for laundering between $9.5 and $25 million for the scheme.

The scam – familiar to anyone with a phone number – involves a robocall that appears to be from the IRS. When you call back, you get a call center staffed with threatening non-English speakers who yell at you if you try to weasel out of paying them with iTunes gift cards.

“This type of fraud is sickening,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick in a release. “However, after years of investigation and incredible hard work by multiple agents and attorneys, these con artists are finally headed to prison. Their cruel tactics preyed on some very vulnerable people, thereby stealing millions from them. These sentences should send a strong message that we will follow the trail no matter how difficult and seek justice for those victimized by these types of transnational schemes. We will simply not stand by and allow criminals to use the names of legitimate government agencies to enrich themselves by victimizing others.”

The fact that up to $25 million was collected in this scam is amazing. The resourcefulness and nastiness of this particular breed of scam is truly impressive and Patel and 23 others will be going away for a while for their many crimes.

Ride-hailing, social interactions from behind tiny screens and fitness tracking are just a few of the things we’ve all become accustomed to thanks to innovative app-makers. It’s not often that we think of tech serving society for good. But it’s time we do.

Promise, mRelief, Pigeon.ly and Concrn are four companies that, from the start, set out to have a positive impact on society. The heads of these startups  have identified issues that plague society and that few people take the time to consider. Bail reform, easier access to food stamps, communication with incarcerated individuals and helping people in need are not sexy issues. But you can utilize tech to try to fix them, and you can hear all about it at Disrupt SF.

The issue of bail reform has gained traction in recent years and has been espoused by the likes of California Senator Kamala Harris and Rand Paul, as well as civil liberties groups. That’s because 62 percent of the jail population is behind bars because they can’t afford bail. The premise of Promise is that it serves as a cheaper alternative to incarceration by partnering with counties to monitor the whereabouts of low-risk offenders via an app, rather than keeping them locked up until trial.

“People are going to jail because they look at a piece of paper and misread it, or are going to jail because they can’t afford a class because they’re instead paying child support,” Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Promise co-founder, told TechCrunch in March when the company raised a $3 million round led by First Round Capital, with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation participating.

Like Promise, mRelief is a service that partners with government. The company’s platform is designed to help cut through bureaucratic tape that can prevent people from accessing important services. Either using a web app or text messaging, users can determine their eligibility to receive food stamp services. Recent updates to the platform now let users in certain locations to go through the entire application process using the web or SMS platform.

“Our mission has long been to restore dignity by transforming access to social services,” Rose Afriyie, mRelief co-founder and executive director, told TechCrunch earlier this year.

The company has helped more than 230,000 families since launching out of Y Combinator in 2016.

Incarcerated individuals are already cut off from society, and when calling friends and family is too cost-prohibitive, it intensifies the isolation. Frederick Hutson, CEO of Pigeon.ly, started the company to help minimize those costs. Hutson, who served four years in prison for drug trafficking, knows all too well the burden this creates. Since the company was founded in 2012, its services have expanded beyond voice. It also allows users to connect to their inmates with photos and letters.

In San Francisco, there is an app that allows users to help people in need. Currently available only in the Tenderloin in San Francisco, Concrn was designed to provide an alternative to calling emergency services. If a user sees someone in emotional or behavioral crisis, they can use the app to report it to a trained Concrn Responder. This helps to alleviate stress on the 911 system and prevents people from unwillingly going into the medical system.

“Our focus has been to create economic opportunities for people in the Tenderloin community who have previously been marginalized or unable to access employment and also people who have experienced their own mental health crisis in the past,” Neil Shah, Concrn co-executive director, told TechCrunch last year.

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Rose Afriyie, Frederick Hutson and Neil Shah will be on the Disrupt SF stage in just a few weeks to talk about using technology to effect change in a society that badly needs it.

The full agenda is here. Passes for the show are available at the early-bird rate until August 1 here.