In Nairobi, a new restaurant is generating business and buzz – not just because of the food, but because of the staff. Robots serving dishes is the main attraction of diners who flock to the Robot Cafe. Juma Majanga reports. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo.
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NEW YORK — Google said Wednesday that an Iranian group linked to the country’s Revolutionary Guard had tried to infiltrate the personal email accounts of roughly a dozen people linked to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump since May. 

The tech company’s threat intelligence arm said the group was still actively targeting people associated with Biden, Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democratic candidate last month when he dropped out of the presidential race. It said those targeted have included current and former government officials, as well as presidential campaign affiliates. 

The new report from Google’s Threat Analysis Group affirmed and expanded upon a Microsoft report released Friday that revealed a suspected Iranian cyber intrusion in this year’s U.S. presidential election. It shed light on how foreign adversaries are increasing their efforts to disrupt the election that is now less than three months away. 

Google’s report said its threat researchers detected and disrupted a “small but steady cadence” of the Iranian attackers using email credential phishing, a type of cyberattack where the attacker poses as a trusted sender to try to get an email recipient to share login details. John Hultquist, chief analyst for the company’s threat intelligence arm, said the company sends suspected targets of these attacks a Gmail pop-up that warns them that a government-backed attacker might be trying to steal their passwords. 

The report said Google observed the group gaining access to one high-profile political consultant’s personal Gmail account. Google reported the incident to the FBI in July. Microsoft’s Friday report had shared similar information, noting that the email account of a former senior adviser to a presidential campaign had been compromised and weaponized to send a phishing email to a high-ranking campaign official. 

The group is familiar to Google’s threat intelligence arm and other researchers, and this isn’t the first time it has tried to interfere in U.S. elections, Hultquist said. The report noted that the same Iranian group targeted both the Biden and Trump campaigns with phishing attacks during the 2020 cycle, as early as June of that year. 

The group also has been prolific in other cyber espionage activity, particularly in the Middle East, the report said. In recent months, as the Israel-Hamas war has fueled tension in the region, that activity has included email phishing campaigns targeted at Israeli diplomats, academics, nongovernmental organizations and military affiliates. 

Trump’s campaign said Saturday that it had been hacked and that sensitive internal documents had been stolen and distributed. It said Iranian actors were to blame. 

The same day, Politico revealed it had received leaked internal Trump campaign documents by email, though it wasn’t clear whether the leaked documents were related to the suspected Iranian cyber activity. The Washington Post and The New York Times also received the documents. 

While the Trump campaign hasn’t provided specific evidence linking Iran to the hack, both Trump and his longtime friend and former adviser Roger Stone have said they were contacted by Microsoft related to suspected cyber intrusions. Stone’s email was compromised by hackers targeting Trump’s campaign, a person familiar with the matter said. 

Google and Microsoft wouldn’t identify the people targeted in the Iranian intrusion attempts or confirm that Stone was among them. Google did confirm that the Iranian group in its report, which it calls APT42, is the same as the one in Microsoft’s research. Microsoft refers to the group as Mint Sandstorm. 

Harris’ campaign has declined to say whether it has identified any state-based intrusion attempts but has said it vigilantly monitors cyber threats and isn’t aware of any security breaches of its systems. 

The FBI on Monday confirmed that it’s investigating the intrusion of the Trump campaign. Two people familiar with the matter said the FBI also is investigating attempts to gain access to the Biden-Harris campaign. 

The reports of Iranian hacking come as U.S. intelligence officials have warned of persistent and mounting efforts from both Russia and Iran to influence the U.S. election through their online activity. Beyond these hacking incidents, groups linked to the countries have used fake news websites and social media accounts to churn out content that appears intended to sway voters’ opinions. 

While neither Microsoft nor Google specified Iran’s intentions in the U.S. presidential race, U.S. officials have previously hinted that Iran particularly opposes Trump. U.S. officials also have expressed alarm about Tehran’s efforts to seek retaliation for a 2020 strike on an Iranian general that was ordered by Trump. 

Iran’s mission to the United Nations, when asked about the claim of the Trump campaign, denied being involved. 

“We do not accord any credence to such reports,” the mission told The Associated Press. “The Iranian government neither possesses nor harbors any intent or motive to interfere in the United States presidential election.” 

The mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday about Google’s report.
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The New Zealand government said Tuesday that it would introduce new legislation to make it easier for companies and researchers to develop and commercialize products using gene technologies such as gene editing. 

Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins said in a statement that rules and time-consuming processes have made research outside the lab almost impossible. 

“These changes will bring New Zealand up to global best practice and ensure we can capitalize on the benefits,” she said. 

Current regulations mean that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) cannot be released out of containment without going through a complex and vigorous process and it is difficult to meet the set standard. Furthermore, gene editing is considered the same as genetic modification even when it doesn’t involve the introduction of foreign DNA. 

Under the new law, low-risk gene editing techniques that produce changes indistinguishable from conventional breeding will be exempted from regulation, local authorities will no longer be able to prevent the use of GMOs in their regions and there will be a new regulator of the industry. 

“This is a major milestone in modernizing gene technology laws to enable us to improve health outcomes, adapt to climate change, deliver massive economic gains and improve the lives of New Zealanders,” Collins said. 

The government hopes to have the legislation passed and the regulator in operation by the end of 2025.
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beijing — Engineers sent China’s biggest-yet cargo drone on a test run over the weekend while a helicopter taxi took to the skies on a soon-to-open 100-km route to Shanghai, laying new milestones for the country’s expanding low-altitude economy.

Packing a payload capacity of 2 metric tons, the twin-engine aircraft took off on Sunday on an inaugural flight, state media said, citing developer Sichuan Tengden Sci-tech Innovation Co., for a trip of about 20 minutes in southwestern Sichuan province.

China’s civilian drone makers are testing larger payloads as the government pushes to build a low-altitude economy, with the country’s aviation regulator envisioning a $279-billion industry by 2030, for a four-fold expansion from 2023.

The Tengden-built drone, with a wingspan of 16.1 meters and a height of 4.6 meters, is slightly larger than the world’s most popular light aircraft, the four-seat Cessna 172.

The trial run followed the maiden flight in June of a cargo drone developed by state-owned Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC), the leading aerospace enterprise.

The AVIC’s HH-100 has a payload capacity of 700 kilograms and a flight radius of 520 km. Next year, AVIC plans to test its biggest cargo drone, the TP2000, which can carry up to 2 tons of cargo and fly four times farther than the HH-100.

China has already begun commercial deliveries by drone.

In May, cargo drone firm Phoenix Wings, part of delivery giant SF Express, started delivering fresh fruit from the island province of Hainan to southern Guangdong, using Fengzhou-90 drones developed by SF, a unit of S.F. Holding 002352.SZ.

Cargo drones promise shorter delivery times and lower transport costs, Chinese industry insiders say, while widening deliveries to sites lacking conventional aviation facilities, such as rooftop spaces in heavily built-up cities.

They could also ferry people on taxi services.
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WUHAN, China — Liu Yi is among China’s 7 million ride-hailing drivers. A 36-year-old Wuhan resident, he started driving part-time this year when construction work slowed in the face of a nationwide glut of unsold apartments.

Now he predicts another crisis as he stands next to his car watching neighbors order driverless taxis.

“Everyone will go hungry,” he said of Wuhan drivers competing against robotaxis from Apollo Go, a subsidiary of technology giant Baidu 9888.HK.

Baidu and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology declined comment.

Ride-hailing and taxi drivers are among the first workers globally to face the threat of job loss from artificial intelligence as thousands of robotaxis hit Chinese streets, economists and industry experts said.

Self-driving technology remains experimental but China has moved aggressively to green-light trials compared with the U.S which is quick to launch investigations and suspend approvals after accidents.

At least 19 Chinese cities are running robotaxi and robobus tests, disclosure showed. Seven have approved tests without human-driver monitors by at least five industry leaders: Apollo Go, Pony.ai, WeRide, AutoX and SAIC Motor 600104.SS.

Apollo Go has said it plans to deploy 1,000 in Wuhan by year-end and operate in 100 cities by 2030.

Pony.ai, backed by Japan’s Toyota Motor 7203.T, operates 300 robotaxis and plans 1,000 more by 2026. Its vice president has said robotaxis could take five years to become sustainably profitable, at which point they will expand “exponentially.”

WeRide is known for autonomous taxis, vans, buses and street sweepers. AutoX, backed by e-commerce leader Alibaba Group 9988.HK, operates in cities including Beijing and Shanghai. SAIC has been operating robotaxis since the end of 2021.

“We’ve seen an acceleration in China. There’s certainly now a rapid pace of permits being issued,” said Boston Consulting Group managing director Augustin Wegscheider. “The U.S. has been a lot more gradual.”

Alphabet’s GOOGL.O Waymo is the only U.S. firm operating uncrewed robotaxis that collect fares. It has over 1,000 cars in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix but could grow to “thousands,” said a person with knowledge of its operations.

Cruise, backed by General Motors GM.N, restarted testing in April after one of its vehicles hit a pedestrian last year.

Cruise said it operates in three cities with safety its core mission. Waymo did not respond to a request for comment.

“There’s a clear contrast between U.S. and China” with robotaxi developers facing far more scrutiny and higher hurdles in the U.S., said former Waymo CEO John Krafcik.

Robotaxis spark safety concerns in China, too, but fleets proliferate as authorities approve testing to support economic goals. Last year, President Xi Jinping called for “new productive forces,” setting off regional competition.

Beijing announced testing in limited areas in June and Guangzhou said this month it would open roads citywide to self-driving trials.

Some Chinese firms have sought to test autonomous cars in the U.S. but the White House is set to ban vehicles with China-developed systems, said people briefed on the matter.

Boston Consulting’s Wegscheider compared China’s push to develop autonomous vehicles to its support of electric vehicles.

“Once they commit,” he said, “they move pretty fast.”

‘Stupid radishes’

China has 7 million registered ride-hailing drivers versus 4.4 million two years ago, official data showed. With ride-hailing providing last-resort jobs during economic slowdown, the side effects of robotaxis could prompt the government to tap the brakes, economists said.

In July, discussion of job loss from robotaxis soared to the top of social media searches with hashtags including, “Are driverless cars stealing taxi drivers’ livelihoods?”

In Wuhan, Liu and other ride-hailing drivers call Apollo Go vehicles “stupid radishes” – a pun on the brand’s name in local dialect – saying they cause traffic jams.

Liu worries, too, about the impending introduction of Tesla’s TSLA.O “Full Self-Driving” system – which still requires human drivers – and the automaker’s robotaxi ambitions.

“I’m afraid that after the radishes come,” he said, “Tesla will come.”

Wuhan driver Wang Guoqiang, 63, sees a threat to workers who can least afford disruption.

“Ride-hailing is work for the lowest class,” he said, as he watched an Apollo Go vehicle park in front of his taxi. “If you kill off this industry, what is left for them to do?”

Baidu declined to comment on the drivers’ concerns and referred Reuters to comments in May by Chen Zhuo, Apollo Go’s general manager. Chen said the firm would become “the world’s first commercially profitable” autonomous-driving platform.

Apollo Go loses almost $11,000 a car annually in Wuhan, Haitong International Securities estimated. A lower-cost model could enable per-vehicle annual profit of nearly $16,000, the securities firm said. By contrast, a ride-hailing car earns about $15,000 total for the driver and platform.

‘Already at the forefront’

Automating jobs could benefit China in the long run given a shrinking population, economists said.

“In the short run, there must be a balance in speed between the creation of new jobs and the destruction of old jobs,” said Tang Yao, associate professor of applied economics at Peking University. “We do not necessarily need to push at the fastest speed, as we are already at the forefront.”

Eastern Pioneer Driving School 603377.SS has more than halved its instructor number since 2019 to about 900. Instead, it has teachers at a Beijing control center remotely monitoring students in 610 cars equipped with computer instruction tools.

Computers score students on every wheel turn and brake tap, and virtual reality simulators coach them on navigating winding roads. Massive screens provide real-time analysis of driver tasks, such as one student’s 82% parallel-parking pass rate.

Zhang Yang, the school’s intelligent-training director, said the machines have done well.

“The efficiency, pass rate and safety awareness have greatly improved.”
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Flying cars, long the dream of futurists, may finally be here. From California, Matt Dibble has our story about the rise of electric aircraft.
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NEW YORK — Iran is ramping up online activity that appears intended to influence the upcoming U.S. election, in one case targeting a presidential campaign with an email phishing attack, Microsoft said Friday.

Iranian actors also have spent recent months creating fake news sites and impersonating activists, laying the groundwork to stoke division and potentially sway American voters this fall, especially in swing states, the technology giant found.

The findings in Microsoft’s newest threat intelligence report show how Iran, which has been active in recent U.S. campaign cycles, is evolving its tactics for another election that’s likely to have global implications. The report goes a step beyond anything U.S. intelligence officials have disclosed, giving specific examples of Iranian groups and the actions they have taken so far. Iran’s United Nations mission denied it had plans to interfere or launch cyberattacks in the U.S. presidential election.

The report doesn’t specify Iran’s intentions besides sowing chaos in the United States, though U.S. officials have previously hinted that Iran particularly opposes former President Donald Trump. U.S. officials also have expressed alarm about Tehran’s efforts to seek retaliation for a 2020 strike on an Iranian general that was ordered by Trump. This week, the Justice Department unsealed criminal charges against a Pakistani man with ties to Iran who’s alleged to have hatched assassination plots targeting multiple officials, potentially including Trump.

The report also reveals how Russia and China are exploiting U.S. political polarization to advance their own divisive messaging in a consequential election year.

Microsoft’s report identified four examples of recent Iranian activity that the company expects to increase as November’s election draws closer.

First, a group linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in June targeted a high-ranking U.S. presidential campaign official with a phishing email, a form of cyberattack often used to gather sensitive information, according to the report, which didn’t identify which campaign was targeted. The group concealed the email’s origins by sending it from the hacked email account of a former senior adviser, Microsoft said.

Days later, the Iranian group tried to log into an account that belonged to a former presidential candidate but wasn’t successful, Microsoft’s report said. The company notified those who were targeted.

In a separate example, an Iranian group has been creating websites that pose as U.S.-based news sites targeted to voters on opposite sides of the political spectrum, the report said.

One fake news site that lends itself to a left-leaning audience insults Trump by calling him “raving mad” and suggests he uses drugs, the report said. Another site meant to appeal to Republican readers centers on LGBTQ issues and gender-affirming surgery.

A third example Microsoft cited found that Iranian groups are impersonating U.S. activists, potentially laying the groundwork for influence operations closer to the election.

Finally, another Iranian group in May compromised an account owned by a government employee in a swing state, the report said. It was unclear whether that cyberattack was related to election interference efforts.

Iran’s U.N. mission sent The Associated Press an emailed statement: “Iran has been the victim of numerous offensive cyber operations targeting its infrastructure, public service centers, and industries. Iran’s cyber capabilities are defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces. Iran has neither the intention nor plans to launch cyber attacks. The U.S. presidential election is an internal matter in which Iran does not interfere.”

The Microsoft report said that as Iran escalates its cyber influence, Russia-linked actors also have pivoted their influence campaigns to focus on the U.S. election, while actors linked to the Chinese Communist Party have taken advantage of pro-Palestinian university protests and other current events in the U.S. to try to raise U.S. political tensions.

Microsoft said it has continued to monitor how foreign foes are using generative AI technology. The increasingly cheap and easy-to-access tools can generate lifelike fake images, photos and videos in seconds, prompting concern among some experts that they will be weaponized to mislead voters this election cycle.

While many countries have experimented with AI in their influence operations, the company said, those efforts haven’t had much impact so far. The report said as a result, some actors have “pivoted back to techniques that have proven effective in the past — simple digital manipulations, mischaracterization of content, and use of trusted labels or logos atop false information.”

Microsoft’s report aligns with recent warnings from U.S. intelligence officials, who say America’s adversaries appear determined to seed the internet with false and incendiary claims ahead of November’s vote.

Top intelligence officials said last month that Russia continues to pose the greatest threat when it comes to election disinformation, while there are indications that Iran is expanding its efforts and China is proceeding cautiously when it comes to 2024.

Iran’s efforts seem aimed at undermining candidates seen as being more likely to increase tension with Tehran, the officials said. That’s a description that fits Trump, whose administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of the top Iranian general.

The influence efforts also coincide with a time of high tensions between Iran and Israel, whose military the U.S. strongly supports.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said last month that the Iranian government has covertly supported American protests over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Groups linked to Iran have posed as online activists, encouraged protests and provided financial support to some protest groups, Haines said.

America’s foes, Iran among them, have a long history of seeking to influence U.S. elections. In 2020, groups linked to Iran sent emails to Democratic voters in an apparent effort to intimidate them into voting for Trump, intelligence officials said.
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United Nations — U.N. member states on Thursday approved a treaty targeting cybercrime, the body’s first such text, despite fierce opposition from human rights activists who have warned of potential surveillance dangers.

After three years of negotiations and a final two-week session in New York, members approved the United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime by consensus, and it will now be submitted to the General Assembly for formal adoption.

“I consider the documents … adopted. Thank you very much, bravo to all!” Algerian diplomat Faouzia Boumaiza Mebarki, chairwoman of the treaty drafting committee, said to applause.

The committee was set up, despite U.S. and European opposition, following an initial move in 2017 by Russia.

The new treaty would enter into force once it has been ratified by 40 member nations and aims to “prevent and combat cybercrime more efficiently and effectively,” notably regarding child sexual abuse imagery and money laundering.

Hailing a “landmark convention,” South Africa’s delegate said, “the provisions of technical assistance and capacity building offer much needed support to countries with less developed cyber infrastructures.”

But the treaty’s detractors — an unusual alliance of human rights activists and big tech companies — denounce it as being far too broad in scope, claiming it could amount to a global “surveillance” treaty and be used for repression.

In particular, the text provides that a state may, in order to investigate any crime punishable by a minimum of four years’ imprisonment under its domestic law, ask the authorities of another nation for any electronic evidence linked to the crime, and also request data from internet service providers.

Warning of an “unprecedented multilateral tool for surveillance,” Deborah Brown of Human Rights Watch told AFP the treaty “will be a disaster for human rights and is a dark moment for the UN.”

“This treaty is effectively a legal instrument of repression,” she said. “It can be used to crack down on journalists, activists, LGBT people, free thinkers, and others across borders.”

Human rights clause

Nick Ashton-Hart heads the Cybersecurity Tech Accord delegation to the treaty talks, representing more than 100 technology companies, including Microsoft and Meta.

“Regretably,” he said Thursday, the committee “adopted a convention without addressing many of the major flaws identified by civil society, the private sector, or even the U.N.’s own human rights body.”

“Wherever it is implemented the Convention will be harmful to the digital environment generally and human rights in particular,” he told AFP, calling for nations not to sign or implement it.

Some nations however are complaining the treaty actually includes too many human rights safeguards.

A few days ago, Russia, which has historically supported the drafting process, complained the treaty had become “oversaturated with human rights safeguards,” while accusing countries of pursuing “narrow self-serving goals under the banner of democratic values.”

During Thursday’s session, Iran attempted to have several clauses with “inherent flaws” deleted.

One paragraph in question stipulated that “nothing in this Convention shall be interpreted as permitting suppression of human rights or fundamental freedoms,” such as “freedoms of expression, conscience, opinion, religion or belief.”

The deletion request was rejected with 102 votes against, 23 in favor (including Russia, India, Sudan, Venezuela, Syria, North Korea and Libya) and 26 abstentions.

Neither Iran nor any other country, however, chose to prevent approval by consensus. 
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CARACAS, Venezuela — President Nicolás Maduro said he has ordered a 10-day block on access to X in Venezuela, accusing the owner Elon Musk of using the social network to promote hatred after the country’s disputed presidential election.

Associated Press journalists in Caracas found that by Thursday night posts had stopped loading on X on two private telephone services and state-owned Movilnet.

“Elon Musk is the owner of X and has violated all the rules of the social network itself,” said Maduro in a speech following a march by pro-government groups. Maduro alleged Musk “has incited hatred.”

Maduro also accused the social network of being used by his opponents to create political unrest.

Venezuela’s president said he had signed a resolution “with the proposal made by CONATEL, the National Telecommunications Commission, which has decided to remove the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, from circulation in Venezuela for 10 days so that they can present their documents.” Maduro did not provide more details about the process taken against X.

X’s press office did not immediately respond to an email from AP requesting comment.

“X out for 10 days! Elon Musk out!” Maduro said.

The president’s announcement comes after Maduro and Musk exchanged accusations over Venezuela’s disputed July 28 presidential election. Electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner but have yet to produce voting tallies. Meanwhile, the opposition claims to have collected records from more than 80% of the 30,000 electronic voting machines nationwide showing the winner was their candidate, Edmundo González.

Musk used the social network to accuse the self-proclaimed socialist leader of a “great electoral fraud.”

“Shame on the dictator Maduro,” Musk said on Monday in a post.

Since the election, Maduro has expressed the need to “regulate” social networks in Venezuela.

Maduro also denounced that the social platform was used by his adversaries to threaten the families of his followers and political allies, military personnel, police officers and to generate a state of anxiety in Venezuela.
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GEORGETOWN, Texas — As with any desktop 3D printer, the Vulcan printer pipes layer by layer to build an object – except this printer is more than 45 feet (13.7 m) wide, weighs 4.75 tons and prints residential homes.

This summer, the robotic printer from ICON is finishing the last few of 100 3D-printed houses in Wolf Ranch, a community in Georgetown, Texas, about 30 miles from Austin.

ICON began printing the walls of what it says is the world’s largest 3D-printed community in November 2022. Compared to traditional construction, the company says that 3D printing homes is faster, less expensive, requires fewer workers, and minimizes construction material waste.

“It brings a lot of efficiency to the trade market,” said ICON senior project manager Conner Jenkins. “So, where there were maybe five different crews coming in to build a wall system, we now have one crew and one robot.”

After concrete powder, water, sand and other additives are mixed together and pumped into the printer, a nozzle squeezes out the concrete mixture like toothpaste onto a brush, building up layer by layer along a pre-programmed path that creates corduroy-effect walls.

The single-story three- to four-bedroom homes take about three weeks to finish printing, with the foundation and metal roofs installed traditionally.

Jenkins said the concrete walls are designed to be resistant to water, mold, termites and extreme weather.

Lawrence Nourzad, a 32-year-old business development director, and his girlfriend Angela Hontas, a 29-year-old creative strategist, purchased a Wolf Ranch home earlier this summer.

“It feels like a fortress,” Nourzad said, adding that he was confident it would be resilient to most tornados.

The walls also provide strong insulation from the Texas heat, the couple said, keeping the interior temperature cool even when the air conditioner wasn’t on full blast.

There was one other thing the 3D-printed walls seemed to protect against, however: a solid wireless internet connection.

“Obviously these are really strong, thick walls. And that’s what provides a lot of value for us as homeowners and keeps this thing really well-insulated in a Texas summer, but signal doesn’t transfer through these walls very well,” Nourzad said.

To alleviate this issue, an ICON spokeswoman said most Wolf Ranch homeowners use mesh internet routers, which broadcast a signal from multiple units placed throughout a home, versus a traditional router which sends a signal from one device.

The 3D-printed homes at Wolf Ranch, called the “Genesis Collection” by developers, range in price from around $450,000 to close to $600,000. Developers said a little more than one quarter of the 100 homes have been sold.

ICON, which 3D-printed its first home in Austin in 2018, hopes to one day take its technology to the Moon. NASA, as part of its Artemis Moon exploration program, has contracted ICON to develop a construction system capable of building landing pads, shelters, and other structures on the lunar surface.
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NEW YORK — Gone is the bullhorn. Instead, New York City emergency management officials have turned high-tech, using drones to warn residents about potential threatening weather.

With a buzzing sound in the background, a drone equipped with a loudspeaker flies over homes warning people who live in basement or ground-floor apartments about impending heavy rains.

“Be prepared to leave your location,” said the voice from the sky in footage released Tuesday by the city’s emergency management agency. “If flooding occurs, do not hesitate.”

About five teams with multiple drones each were deployed to specific neighborhoods prone to flooding. Zach Iscol, the city’s emergency management commissioner, said the messages were being relayed in multiple languages. They were expected to continue until the weather impacted the drone flights.

Flash floods have been deadly for New Yorkers living in basement apartments, which can quickly fill up in a deluge. Eleven people drowned in such homes in 2011 amid rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ida.

The drones are in addition to other forms of emergency messaging, including social media, text alerts and a system that reaches more than 2,000 community-based organizations throughout the city that serve senior citizens, people with disabilities and other groups.

“You know, we live in a bubble, and we have to meet people where they are in notifications so they can be prepared,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at a press briefing on Tuesday.

Adams is a self-described “tech geek” whose administration has tapped drone technology to monitor large gatherings as well as to search for sharks on beaches. Under his watch, the city’s police department also briefly toyed with using a robot to patrol the Times Square subway station, and it has sometimes deployed a robotic dog to dangerous scenes, including the Manhattan parking garage that collapsed in 2023.
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wichita falls, texas — Elon Musk’s social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging that a “massive advertiser boycott” deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws.

The company formerly known as Twitter filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted.

It accused the advertising group’s brand safety initiative, called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, of helping to coordinate a pause in advertising after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and overhauled its staff and policies.

Musk posted about the lawsuit on X on Tuesday, saying “now it is war” after two years of being nice and “getting nothing but empty words.”

X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a video announcement that the lawsuit stemmed in part from evidence uncovered by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, which she said showed a “group of companies organized a systematic illegal boycott” against X.

The Republican-led committee had a hearing last month looking at whether current laws are “sufficient to deter anticompetitive collusion in online advertising.”

The lawsuit’s allegations center on the early days of Musk’s Twitter takeover and not a more recent dispute with advertisers that came a year later.

In November 2023, about a year after Musk bought the company, a number of advertisers began fleeing X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general, with Musk inflaming tensions with his own posts endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Musk later said those fleeing advertisers were engaging in blackmail and, using a profanity, essentially told them to go away.

The Belgium-based World Federation of Advertisers and representatives for CVS, Orsted, Mars and Unilever didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

A top Unilever executive testified at last month’s congressional hearing, defending the British consumer goods company’s practice of choosing to put ads on platforms that won’t harm its brand.

“Unilever, and Unilever alone, controls our advertising spending,” said prepared written remarks by Herrish Patel, president of Unilever USA. “No platform has a right to our advertising dollar.”
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Chicago — Five secretaries of state are urging Elon Musk to fix an AI chatbot on the social media platform X, saying in a letter sent Monday that it has spread election misinformation.

The top election officials from Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington told Musk that X’s AI chatbot, Grok, produced false information about state ballot deadlines shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.

While Grok is available only to subscribers to the premium versions of X, the misinformation was shared across multiple social media platforms and reached millions of people, according to the letter. The bogus ballot deadline information from the chatbot also referenced Alabama, Indiana, Ohio and Texas, although their secretaries of state did not sign the letter. Grok continued to repeat the false information for 10 days before it was corrected, the secretaries said.

The letter urged X to immediately fix the chatbot “to ensure voters have accurate information in this critical election year.” That would include directing Grok to send users to CanIVote.org, a voting information website run by the National Association of Secretaries of State, when asked about U.S. elections.

“In this presidential election year, it is critically important that voters get accurate information on how to exercise their right to vote,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said in a statement. “Voters should reach out to their state or local election officials to find out how, when, and where they can vote.”

X did not respond to a request for comment.

Grok debuted last year for X premium and premium plus subscribers and was touted by Musk as a “rebellious” AI chatbot that will answer “spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.”

Social media platforms have faced mounting scrutiny for their role in spreading misinformation, including about elections. The letter also warned that inaccuracies are to be expected for AI products, especially chatbots such as Grok that are based on large language models.

“As tens of millions of voters in the U.S. seek basic information about voting in this major election year, X has the responsibility to ensure all voters using your platform have access to guidance that reflects true and accurate information about their constitutional right to vote,” the secretaries wrote in the letter.

Since Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it to X, watchdog groups have raised concerns over a surge in hate speech and misinformation being amplified on the platform, as well as the reduction of content moderation teams, elimination of misinformation features and censoring of journalists critical of Musk.

Experts say the moves represent a regression from progress made by social media platforms attempting to better combat political disinformation after the 2016 U.S. presidential contest and could precipitate a worsening misinformation landscape ahead of this year’s November elections.
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