BBC Talks AI Job Loss from their Perspective

Initial look at AI Related Job losses, Intro.

The workers already replaced by artificial intelligence

Published, 2 days ago

Dean Meadowcroft never thought that AI would replace him

By Ian Rose, Business reporter, BBC News

Until recently Dean Meadowcroft was a copywriter in a small marketing department., His duties included writing press releases, social media posts and other content for his company., But then, late last year, his firm introduced an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system.

"At the time the idea was that it would be working alongside human lead copywriters to help speed up the process, essentially streamline things a little bit more," he says., Mr Meadowcroft was not particularly impressed with the AI's work.

"It just kind of made everybody sound middle of the road, on the fence, and exactly the same, and therefore nobody really stands out."

The content also had to be checked by human staff to make sure it had not been lifted from anywhere else.

But the AI was fast. What might take a human copywriter between 60 and 90 minutes to write, the AI could do in 10 minutes or less.

Around four months after the AI was introduced, Mr Meadowcroft's four-strong team was laid off., Mr Meadowcroft can't be certain, but he's pretty sure the AI replaced them.

"I did laugh-off the idea of AI replacing writers, or affecting my job, until it did," he said.

The latest wave of AI hit late last year when OpenAI launched ChatGPT.

Backed by Microsoft, ChatGPT can give human-like responses to questions and can, in minutes, generate essays, speeches, even recipes.

Other tech giants are scrambling to launch their own systems - Google launched Bard in March.

While not perfect, such systems are trained on the ocean of data available on the internet - an amount of information impossible for even a team of humans to digest.

So that's left many wondering which jobs might be at risk.

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Earlier this year, a report from Goldman Sachs said that AI could potentially replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs.

Any job losses would not fall equally the economy. According to the report, 46% of tasks in administrative and 44% in legal professions could be automated, but only 6% in construction and 4% in maintenance.

The report also points out that the introduction of AI could boost productivity and growth and might create new jobs.

There is some evidence of that already.  ... '  "  

Meta Scientist Yann LeCun says AI won't Destroy Jobs forever

Meta Scientist Yann LeCun says AI won't destroy jobs forever    in the BBC

Prof Yann LeCun is known as one of the three godfathers of AI and works as Facebook-owner Meta's top AI scientist    By Chris Vallance, Technology reporter

One of the three "godfathers of AI" has said it won't take over the world or permanently destroy jobs.

Prof Yann LeCun said some experts' fears of AI posing a threat to humanity were "preposterously ridiculous".

Computers would become more intelligent than humans but that was many years away and "if you realise it's not safe you just don't built it," he said.

A UK government advisor recently told the BBC that some powerful artificial intelligence might need to be banned.

In 2018 Prof LeCun won the Turing Award with Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio for their breakthroughs in AI and all three became known as "the godfathers of AI".

Prof LeCun now works as the chief AI scientist at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. He disagrees with his fellow godfathers that AI is a risk to the human race.

"Will AI take over the world? No, this is a projection of human nature on machines" he said. It would be a huge mistake to keep AI research "under lock and key", he added.

What is AI and what risks does it pose?

Warning using AI for loans and mortgages is big risk

People who worried that AI might pose a risk to humans did so because they couldn't imagine how it could be made safe, Prof LeCun argued.

"It's as if you asked in 1930 to someone how are you going to make a turbo-jet safe? Turbo-jets were not invented yet in 1930, same as human level AI has not been invented yet."  "Turbo jets were eventually made incredibly reliable and safe," and the same would happen with AI he said. Meta has a large AI research programme and producing intelligent systems as capable as humans is one of its goals. As well as research, the company uses AI to help identify harmful social media posts.

Prof LeCun spoke at an event for invited press, about his own work in so-called Objective Driven AI which aims to produce safe systems that can remember, reason, plan and have common sense - features popular chatbots like ChatGPT lack.  ... ' 

Vision Pro: Apple's New Augmented Reality Headset Unveiled

Pricey indeed, likely first specialty applications.

Vision Pro: Apple's new augmented reality headset unveiled    By Tom Gerken & James Clayton at Apple Park in California    in BBC News

Apple has unveiled a much-anticipated augmented reality headset, Apple Vision Pro, in its first major hardware launch for almost a decade.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the new headset "seamlessly blends the real world and the virtual world".

The tech firm also announced its latest iPhone operating system, as well as updates to MacBook Air.

The headset has a two-hour battery life, costs $3,499 (£2,849) and will be released early next year in the US.

The cost is considerably more than virtual reality headsets currently on the market. Last week Meta announced its Quest - which costs $449.

Apple said little about generative artificial intelligence - the buzzy technology that is the talk of Silicon Valley.

The company's share price fell slightly during the announcement, made at a developer's conference at Apple Park, the company's headquarters, in Cupertino, California.

The BBC is among the media outlets at the event, but has yet to try out the new device.

'Ski goggles'

Apple Vision Pro looks different to similar headsets on the market - and is more reminiscent of a pair of ski goggles than a virtual reality headset.

Apple used the phrase "augmented reality" to describe what the new device does.

Augmented reality, also known as mixed reality, superimposes virtual objects in the world around us - enabling us to mix reality with virtual reality by looking through a screen.

Users can access apps, watch movies, and write documents in a virtual world. But so far, there is little evidence of a big market for this kind of wearable tech.

Hartley Charlton, senior editor of MacRumors, was unsure how much the headset would appeal to the general public.

"It won't appeal to mainstream consumers at first on account of its extremely high price point and immediate shortcomings as a first-generation device," he said, "such as its separate wired battery pack."

But he said Apple has a track record of "overcoming scepticism" about new devices, and has historically encouraged people to "part with their cash to add a new gadget to their repertoire".

Neeva, Ad-Free Search Engine Shuts Down

 Recall being asked to comment on this. No mention of AI at the time.

Neeva: Ad-free search engine shuts down  in the BBC. 

Neeva, an advert- and tracker-free search engine founded by a former Google ad exec, says it will shut down.

The search engine asked users to pay rather than be shown ads but struggled to attract subscribers.

Recently, it also started showing artificial-intelligence-generated answers to searches.  Now, the company says it is looking to build on the expertise it developed to provide those answers and is exploring other AI businesses opportunities.  It will close on 2 June, it says, and users will be able to receive a refund for the unused portion of their subscriptions.

'Better choice'

Neeva was created by Sridhar Ramaswamy, who worked at Google for 16 years and ran its ad business. He told BBC News the technology sector had become "exploitative" of people's data, something he no longer wanted to be a part of.

But he and co-founder Vivek Raghunathan have now blogged: "Throughout this journey, we've discovered that it is one thing to build a search engine and an entirely different thing to convince regular users of the need to switch to a better choice."

They were up against "entrenched organisations with endless resources" and "friction", such as users having to change default search settings, preventing people from switching,

The founders also blamed a "different economic environment" since launch, in October.

"Contrary to popular belief, convincing users to pay for a better experience was actually a less difficult problem compared to getting them to try a new search engine in the first place," they said.

'Pressing need'  The search engine employs about 50 people and, at launch, had raised $77.5m (£68m) from investors.   The company said it was now looking for commercial opportunities to apply its expertise in AI, particularly in large language models (LLM), which power chatbots such as ChatGPT.

"Over the past year, we've seen the clear, pressing need to use LLMs effectively, inexpensively, safely, and responsibly," the founders said. And the technology they had developed for Neeva "enterprises really want, and need, today".

"We are actively exploring how we can apply our search and LLM expertise in these settings and we will provide updates on the future of our work and our team in the next few weeks," they added.  ... ' 

Time Banking

Flexibility in payment.

The people turning time into a currency  in the BBC

Published, 4 days ago, By Elna Schutz, Business reporter

After spending 10 years as a Buddhist nun in Myanmar, Coral Sunone realised that she needed some fashion help when she returned to the outside world.

But with money tight, getting assistance from a professional stylist was simply out of the question. Or was it?

Coral, who is based in Malaysia, heard of a website called TimeRepublik, which describes itself as "a timebank for the internet era".

Time banking is in essence a more sophisticated form of bartering. You don't pay someone in money for a job that they do for you. Instead you give that person time credits that they can then use to get a service without financial payment from someone else.

Via the TimeRepublik website, Coral was able to connect with Cherish Cullison, a New York-based professional wardrobe stylist and costume designer.

Over Zoom, Cherish was able to help Coral find the modern clothing that best suited her.

"She styled me very well," says Coral. "No money can pay for such a transaction, it is priceless, it is based on trust."

The two have stayed in touch after they first met on TimeRepublik a few years ago. This has included Coral returning the favour of assistance, and giving Cherish some meditation lessons.

Cherish says it is good that "the expectation of money is out of the way".

"Instead you really get to the core of things and you discover something, I think, that's greater and sort of priceless."

After Quitting, Hinton Warns

No comments from PNC, NKorea or Soviets.  Agree to more cautions.

AI 'godfather' Geoffrey Hinton warns of dangers as he quits Google.  In the BBC

Watch: AI 'godfather' Geoffrey Hinton tells the BBC of AI dangers as he quits Google

By Zoe Kleinman & Chris Vallance,  BBC News

A man widely seen as the godfather of artificial intelligence (AI) has quit his job, warning about the growing dangers from developments in the field.

Geoffrey Hinton, 75, announced his resignation from Google in a statement to the New York Times, saying he now regretted his work.

He told the BBC some of the dangers of AI chatbots were "quite scary".

"Right now, they're not more intelligent than us, as far as I can tell. But I think they soon may be."

Dr Hinton also accepted that his age had played into his decision to leave the tech giant, telling the BBC: "I'm 75, so it's time to retire."

Dr Hinton's pioneering research on neural networks and deep learning has paved the way for current AI systems like ChatGPT.

In artificial intelligence, neural networks are systems that are similar to the human brain in the way they learn and process information. They enable AIs to learn from experience, as a person would. This is called deep learning.

The British-Canadian cognitive psychologist and computer scientist told the BBC that chatbots could soon overtake the level of information that a human brain holds.

"Right now, what we're seeing is things like GPT-4 eclipses a person in the amount of general knowledge it has and it eclipses them by a long way. In terms of reasoning, it's not as good, but it does already do simple reasoning," he said.

"And given the rate of progress, we expect things to get better quite fast. So we need to worry about that."

Is the world prepared for the coming AI storm?

AI could affect 300 million jobs - report

BBC Reel: Why we are still smarter than machines

In the New York Times article, Dr Hinton referred to "bad actors" who would try to use AI for "bad things".

When asked by the BBC to elaborate on this, he replied: "This is just a kind of worst-case scenario, kind of a nightmare scenario.

"You can imagine, for example, some bad actor like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin decided to give robots the ability to create their own sub-goals."

The scientist warned that this eventually might "create sub-goals like 'I need to get more power'".

He added: "I've come to the conclusion that the kind of intelligence we're developing is very different from the intelligence we have.

"We're biological systems and these are digital systems. And the big difference is that with digital systems, you have many copies of the same set of weights, the same model of the world.

"And all these copies can learn separately but share their knowledge instantly. So it's as if you had 10,000 people and whenever one person learnt something, everybody automatically knew it. And that's how these chatbots can know so much more than any one person."

Matt Clifford, the chairman of the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency, speaking in a personal capacity, told the BBC that Dr Hinton's announcement "underlines the rate at which AI capabilities are accelerating".

"There's an enormous upside from this technology, but it's essential that the world invests heavily and urgently in AI safety and control," he said.

Dr Hinton joins a growing number of experts who have expressed concerns about AI - both the speed at which it is developing and the direction in which it is going. ... ' 

How Artificial Intelligence is Matching Drugs to Patients

Considerable direction, following.  

How artificial intelligence is matching drugs to patients  in the BBC

Published,2 days ago, By Natalie Lisbona, Business reporter, Tel Aviv

Dr Talia Cohen Solal sits down at a microscope to look closely at human brain cells grown in a petri dish.   "The brain is very subtle, complex and beautiful," she says.

A neuroscientist, Dr Cohen Solal is the co-founder and chief executive of Israeli health-tech firm Genetika+.  Established in 2018, the company says its technology can best match antidepressants to patients, to avoid unwanted side effects, and make sure that the prescribed drug works as well as possible.

"We can characterise the right medication for each patient the first time," adds Dr Cohen Solal.

Genetika+ does this by combining the latest in stem cell technology - the growing of specific human cells - with artificial intelligence (AI) software.  From a patient's blood sample its technicians can generate brain cells. These are then exposed to several antidepressants, and recorded for cellular changes called "biomarkers".

This information, taken with a patient's medical history and genetic data, is then processed by an AI system to determine the best drug for a doctor to prescribe and the dosage.

Although the technology is currently still in the development stage, Tel Aviv-based Genetika+ intends to launch commercially next year.  .... '

Linkedin Changing its Tone

 We talked to them, considering it a means to better manage internal resources.  

How LinkedIn is changing and why some are not happy

By Michael Dempsey  the BBC

Technology of Business reporter

Social media is where we project a version of ourselves. And a pensive Dan Kelsall is nothing like his rowdy character on LinkedIn, the social media platform famously tagged "Facebook for suits".

In the online world the co-founder of Manchester marketing firm Offended makes sure his business lives up to its name. His posts stick out for the prevalence of profanity and no holds barred humour.

Offended specialises in guerrilla marketing, turning the world of corporate messaging and polished branding upside down. As the irreverent Mr Kelsall puts it: "We don't just get our own ads banned, we get ads banned for our clients too."

With 900 million of the world's professionals registering their personal CV and career attainments on the site, LinkedIn has become a valuable resource for head-hunters and human resources departments.

But over the last three years or so, this once staid community billboard of career updates and business launches has seen a change in tone.

Many posts have become more personal, featuring the emotional backstories of its members with accounts of childhood influences and admissions of failings and frailties.  This is a far cry from the hard-sell approach beloved of many corporate players and not everyone is happy. Critics murmur that these posts are more suited to the weekend musings of Facebook or the raucous tone of Twitter.

So what has triggered this change? According to Mr Kelsall, boredom with corporate marketing is one culprit.  It's hard to imagine, but Mr Kelsall once worked as a copywriter for a tax software firm, producing "some of the driest things I've written". He may not have enjoyed this time, but it did give him an insight into what pulls in readers.

"Consumers are less and less trusting of big brands. People are tired of boring marketing.

"The skill is to speak like your audience and be relatable to your audience. I've been on LinkedIn for seven years and I've got 66,000 followers. That's a really engaged audience."  ... ' 

Snake Robot

New locations to explore

Nasa-JPL snake robot explores extreme terrain

Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is developing an exobiology extant life surveyor (EELS). It was conceived to explore diverse terrains and ultimately search for evidence of life.

It was tested in Canada's Athabasca glacier and Mount Meager volcano. The latter expedition was made possible by the Trebek Initiative, a partnership between the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and National Geographic.  

NFT Plan Dropped

From the BBC, indicator of a bubble? 

NFT: Plans for Royal Mint produced token dropped

Plans for the NFT for Britain were launched when Rishi Sunak was chancellor

By Helen Catt & Sam Francis

Plans for a government backed non-fungible token (NFT) produced by the Royal Mint have been dropped, the Treasury has announced.

Rishi Sunak ordered the creation of a "NFT for Britain" that could be traded online, while chancellor in April 2022.

NFTs are assets in the digital world that can be bought and sold, but which have no physical form of their own.

The Royal Mint announced it was "not proceeding with the launch" following a consultation with the Treasury.

Economic Secretary Andrew Griffiths said the department would keep the proposal "under review".

NFTs have been touted as the digital answer to collectables, but some sceptics fear they could be a bubble waiting to burst. They have been used as speculative assets and some have sold for millions of dollars.

Responding to the announcement, Harriet Baldwin, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, said: "We have not yet seen a lot of evidence that our constituents should be putting their money in these speculative tokens unless they are prepared to lose all their money.

"So perhaps that is why the Royal Mint has made this decision in conjunction with the Treasury."  ... ' 

Security Issues in AI Emerge

There seems to have been an urge to get some of these systems out before securing them.

ChatGPT bug leaked users' conversation histories  in the BBC

OpenAI launched ChatGPT last November    By Ben Derico       BBC News, San Francisco

A ChatGPT glitch allowed some users to see the titles of other users' conversations, the artificial intelligence chatbot's boss has said.

On social media sites Reddit and Twitter, users had shared images of chat histories that they said were not theirs.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company feels "awful", but the "significant" error had now been fixed.   Many users, however, remain concerned about privacy on the platform.

Millions of people have used ChatGPT to draft messages, write songs and even code since it launched in November of last year.  Each conversation with the chatbot is stored in the user's chat history bar where it can be revisited later.

Is the world prepared for the coming AI storm?

But as early as Monday, users began to see conversations appear in their history that they said they hadn't had with the chatbot,One user on Reddit shared a photo of their chat history including titles like "Chinese Socialism Development", as well as conversations in Mandarin.  

On Tuesday, the company told Bloomberg that it had briefly disabled the chatbot late on Monday to fix the error.  They also said that users had not been able to access the actual chats.

OpenAI's chief executive tweeted that there would be a "technical postmortem" soon. But the error has drawn concern from users who fear their private information could be released through the tool. The glitch seemed to indicate that OpenAI has access to user chats.

The company's privacy policy does say that user data, such as prompts and responses, may be used to continue training the model. But that data is only used after personally identifiable information has been removed. 

The blunder also comes just a day after Google unveiled its chatbot Bard to a group of beta testers and journalists. Google and Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, have been jostling for control of the burgeoning market for artificial intelligence tools. But the pace of new product updates and releases has many concerned missteps like these could be harmful or have unintended consequences.  ... ' 

BBC advises staff to delete TikTok from work phones

Security addressed  at the BBC

BBC advises staff to delete TikTok from work phones

Published, 22 hours ago, By Zoe Kleinman, Andre Rhoden-Paul & Chris Vallance

BBC News

The BBC has advised staff to delete TikTok from corporate phones because of privacy and security fears.

The BBC seems to be the first UK media organisation to issue the guidance - and only the second in the world after Denmark's public service broadcaster.

The BBC said it would continue to use the platform for editorial and marketing purposes for now. TikTok has consistently denied any wrongdoing.   The app has been banned on government phones in the UK and elsewhere.

Countries imposing bans include the US, Canada, New Zealand and Belgium, while the same applies to anyone working at the European Commission.

However, it is still permitted on personal devices.

The big fear is that data harvested by the platform from corporate phones could be shared with the Chinese government by TikTok's parent company ByteDance, because its headquarters are in Beijing.

TikTok says the bans are based on "fundamental misconceptions".

ByteDance employees were found to have tracked the locations of a handful of Western journalists in 2022. The company says they were fired.  Alicia Kearns, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, was asked for her view on the BBC's decision, and tweeted: "If protecting sources isn't a priority, that's a major problem."

'Encouraging TikTok, not banning it'

Dominic Ponsford, editor-in-chief of journalism industry trade publication the Press Gazette, said it would be interesting to see what other media organisations decide to do.

He told the BBC: "I suspect everyone's chief technical officer will be looking at this very closely.

"Until now, news organisations have been very keen to use TikTok, because it's been one of the fastest-growing social media platforms for news publishers over the last year, and it's been a good source of audience and traffic.

"So most of the talk in the news media has been around encouraging TikTok rather than banning it."

BBC taking security 'incredibly seriously'

The short-video platform is known for its viral dance crazes, sketches and filters and is hugely popular among young people, with more than 3.5 billion downloads worldwide.  Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy tweeted in reaction to the decision: "BBC News making big play for views on TikTok but now the BBC is telling staff not to have it on their phones".

A BBC spokesperson said it took the safety and security of its systems, data and people "incredibly seriously".

TikTok banned from official UK government phones

How much data does TikTok collect?.... '

Interpol Policing the Metaverse

Never seen this before,  Interpol involved in this kind of activity.  Has it been common?  Note mentions they are creating their own VR space. 

Interpol working out how to police the metaverse, In the BBC , By Marc Cieslak & Tom Gerken

Interpol secretary general Jurgen Stock says the global police agency is investigating how the organisation could police crime in the metaverse.

The metaverse is the widely-discussed, but not yet realised, concept that in the future people will be represented by 3D avatars in their online lives.

Interpol has built its own virtual reality (VR) space, where users can do training and attend virtual meetings.

Mr Stock said it is important for the agency to not get left behind.

"Criminals are sophisticated and professional in very quickly adapting to any new technological tool that is available to commit crime," he said., "We need to sufficiently respond to that. Sometimes lawmakers, police, and our societies are running a little bit behind., "We have seen if we are doing it too late, it already impacts trust in the tools we are using, and therefore the metaverse. In similar platforms that already exist, criminals are using it."

The environment, which can only be accessed through secure servers, enables police officers to experience what the metaverse could be, giving them a sense of the crimes that could occur, and how they could be policed.... ' 

Google/Alphabet Cutting Jobs

Tech slipping.  To be replaced by AI? 

Google's parent company Alphabet will cut 12,000 jobs, in the latest staff redundancies to hit the tech industry.   in BBD

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said he took "full responsibility" for the cuts, in an internal email.  The cuts will affect 6% of Alphabet's workforce worldwide, in teams including recruitment and engineering.  This comes days after Microsoft announced 10,000 jobs would be lost, and weeks after Amazon announced 18,000 job cuts.

Mr Pichai thanked staff for "working so hard" in their roles, adding that their "contributions have been invaluable".  He wrote: "While this transition won't be easy, we're going to support employees as they look for their next opportunity.

"Until then, please take good care of yourselves as you absorb this difficult news. As part of that, if you are just starting your work day, please feel free to work from home today."

According to a recent filing with Companies House, Google has more than 5,500 staff in the UK. But it is unclear how many of these will be affected by the cuts.   .... '

UK Considers the Implications of the Digital Pound

  Implications need to be very closely examined.   Is 'long way down the road' they say

Cryptocurrency: UK Treasury considers plan for digital pound  By Shiona McCallum, Technology reporter   in the BBC.  (Updated)

The government is considering introducing a national cryptocurrency or "digital pound", the economic secretary to the Treasury has told MPs.

The UK was committed to becoming a world crypto hub, Andrew Griffith said.  And the government was "a long way down the road... to establish a regime for the wholesale use, for payment purposes, of stablecoins"., Stablecoins are designed to have a predictable value linked to traditional currencies or assets such as gold.

'Game-changing technology'

A public consultation on the attributes of a digital pound would be launched in coming weeks, Mr Griffith told the Treasury Select Committee.

"I want to see us establish a regime, and this is within the FSMB [Financial Services and Markets Bill, currently being debated in Parliament], for the wholesale use for payment purposes of stablecoins," he said,  Central banks around the world are developing or exploring digital currencies.

And Mr Griffith told the committee: "It is right to look to seek to embrace potentially disruptive technologies, particularly when we have such a strong fintech and financial sector."

He wanted to allow the opportunity for this "potentially disruptive game-changing technology that can challenge but also turbocharge all of those [financial] industries", he said.

Consumer protection

The "crypto winter", a rapid decline in the value of Bitcoin and other assets and , has intensified concerns about whether any cryptocurrency can ever be considered stable.

It also has the potential to raise many public-policy issues.

And there will also be a public consultation on Britain's first general regulatory approach to crypto assets, a sector where consumer protection has come under scrutiny in recent weeks.

But the consultation will form part of a "research and exploration" phase and will help both the Bank of England and the government develop the plans over the following few years.  ... ' 

Netflix Password Sharing may Be illegal, says UK government: BBC

In the BBC on password sharing.    Illegal vs allowed?  Copyright law involved?   Intellectual Property. 

Netflix password sharing may be illegal, says UK government  By Tom Gerken, BBC Technology reporter   Sharing passwords for online streaming services such as Netflix is against the law, according to a government agency. The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) said on Tuesday the practice broke copyright law.

It is common in the UK for people who do not live together to share their streaming service passwords, despite this typically being against terms of service agreements.  Netflix has never indicated it would take any legal action in such cases.

The IPO has since removed the reference to password sharing in its guidance on the government website. However, a spokesperson confirmed the legal position on password sharing had not changed - and nor has the IPO's guidance.

It said password sharing was both a criminal and civil matter. "There are a range of provisions in criminal and civil law which may be applicable in the case of password sharing where the intent is to allow a user to access copyright-protected works without payment," it said.

"These provisions may include breach of contractual terms, fraud or secondary copyright infringement, depending on the circumstances. "Where these provisions are provided in civil law, it would be up to the service provider to take action through the courts if required."

There is no evidence to suggest any of the major streaming video operators in the UK would do this.  Netflix said it wanted to "make it easy" for people borrowing others' accounts to set up their own, to transfer their profile into a new account, as well as to create "sub-accounts" for people to pay extra for family or friends. It said it would start rolling out these features "more broadly" in early 2023. The BBC has also approached streaming service operators Amazon and Disney for comment.

Scale of the problem

Research firm Digital i estimates around a quarter of UK Netflix subscribers - around four million - are sharing their passwords. Product manager Matt Ross told the BBC account sharing "presents a major challenge" to Netflix and other streaming services.

"Following on from the addition of the ad-supported tier, there is clearly an opportunity for Netflix to generate significant additional revenue by cracking down on account sharing and converting those who do into subscribers in their own right," he said. .... ' 

Pilotless Cargo Carrying Planes

 With Drones everywhere, inevitable.   Emerging Market

The cargo hauling aircraft with no pilots on board

Published  4 days ago

A scaled-down version of the Black Swan at an airfield in Bulgaria

By Michael Dempsey  Reporter  in the BBC

Svilen Rangelov sports an impressive beard. It's eight years' worth of growth he says.   The beard dates back to when he and his younger brother, an aerospace engineer by training, formed Dronamics as Europe's answer to the emerging market for cargo drones.

He agreed with his brother Konstantin that they would shave their beards only after the first flight of the drone they've been building in their native Bulgaria.

At the time he established Dronamics big tech giants like Amazon were experimenting with drone deliveries to domestic addresses. But Mr Rangelov never believed in the concept of personal goods delivered by the drone.

The practical difficulties of flying a drone right up to someone's front door were obvious to Mr Rangelov. "We couldn't buy into the concept of small drones. We took a different approach."

This take on drone delivery will bear fruit when the prototype cargo aircraft takes to the air.  ... ' 

US-China Chip War Continues

 A Space I am watching, regards the players and supply chain.  Point me to other relevant information.

US-China chip war: How the technology dispute is playing out    By Suranjana Tewari and Jonathan Josephs  BBC News  (excerpt) 

The US is rapidly ramping up efforts to try to hobble China's progress in the semiconductor industry - vital for everything from smartphones to weapons of war.

In October, Washington announced some of the broadest export controls yet - requiring licences for companies exporting chips to China using US tools or software, no matter where they're made in the world.  Washington's measures also prevent US citizens and green card holders from working for certain Chinese chip companies. Green card holders are US permanent residents who have the right to work in the country.

It is cutting off a key pipeline of American talent to China which will affect the development of high-end semiconductors.

Why is the US doing this?

Advanced chips are used to power supercomputers, artificial intelligence and military hardware.  The US says China's use of the technology poses a threat to its own national security.

Alan Estevez, undersecretary at the US Commerce Department announced the rules, saying his intention was to ensure the US was doing everything it could to prevent "sensitive technologies with military applications" from being acquired by China.  "The threat environment is always changing and we are updating our policies today to make sure we're addressing the challenges," he said.

Meanwhile, China has called the controls "technology terrorism".

Countries in Asia that produce chips - such as Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea - have raised concerns about how this bitter battle is affecting the global supply chain.

And there were three significant developments in the chip conflict over the past week.

More Chinese firms on 'entity list'

The Biden administration has added 36 more Chinese companies, including major chipmaker YMTC to Washington's "entity list".

It means American companies will need government permission to sell certain technologies to them, and that permission is difficult to secure.   The US restrictions have broad implications. Last week, UK-based computer chip designer Arm confirmed that it was not selling its most advanced designs to Chinese firms including tech giant Alibaba because of US and UK controls.

Arm said it was "committed to adhering to all applicable export laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which it operates."  .... ' 

Elon Musk sells $3.6bn of shares in electric car maker Tesla

New movement in tech oriented stock, Elon Musk sells $3.6bn of shares in electric car maker Tesla  in the BBC

Published, 11 hours ago, Elon Musk takes part in a news conference at the SpaceX Starbase.

By Peter Hoskins, BBC Business reporter

Multi-billionaire Elon Musk has sold another 22 million shares, worth $3.58bn (£2.9bn), in the electric car maker Tesla., The shares were sold on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, according to a filing with a US financial regulator.

It brings the total of Tesla stocks sold by Mr Musk over the past year to almost $40bn., Earlier this week Mr Musk lost his position as the world's richest person.

The reason for the latest share sales has not been disclosed., He remains Tesla's biggest shareholder with a 13.4% stake, according to financial market data provider Refinitiv.

Last month Mr Musk revealed that he had sold 19.5 million shares of Tesla worth $3.95bn, just days after completing a $44bn takeover of social media platform Twitter.  ... ' 

Morning Coffee Tech

An agriculture rea I worked in, some details here, will dig somewhat deeper.

Morning Coffee Tech  By Luana Ferreira in the BBC   Business reporter, Brazil

For an estimated one billion people around the world drinking coffee is a daily regime.

Yet what many coffee lovers might not know is that they are often drinking a brew made, at least in part, from Brazilian beans.

"Brazilian beans have popular characteristics, and are known for their body and sweetness," says Christiano Borges, boss of the country's largest grower, Ipanema Coffees.

"Therefore, many coffee blends in the world use our coffee as a base."

Brazil is far and away the world's largest grower of coffee beans. It accounts for more than one third of all global supplies, or 37% in 2020, to be exact. In second place is Vietnam with 17% of supplies.

Some 70% of Brazil's coffee plants are the highly-priced arabica species, used in fresh coffee. The remaining 30% are robusta, which is used primarily for instant coffee.

Brazil's largest coffee plantations stretch for miles on end

The problem for Brazil, and world coffee supplies in general, is that last year the country's annual crop plummeted by almost a quarter due to a drought across its main coffee growing region, which centres on the south-eastern states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná., The knock-on affect has been a global reduction in coffee beans supplies, and a subsequent doubling in wholesale prices since this time last year.

To try to alleviate any future falls in production, Brazil's largest coffee producers are increasingly turning towards technology to help them successfully grow and process the best possible crop, both in terms of size and quality., One such firm, Okuyama, says it is now investing at least 10% of its revenues in technology. Based in Minas Gerais, it has coffee plantations covering 1,100 hectares (2,718 acres).

Its staff use a computer app called Cropwise Protector, which is made by Swiss-Chinese agricultural tech firm, Syngenta., Linked to ground sensors and satellite imagery, the tool gives the farm workers a visual analysis of the farm, or plantation, on a tablet device or laptop.

They can then quickly apply such things as drip-irrigation, or pest-control, to a very specific area that might need it, rather than a whole field or the entire farm.   ... '