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India is trying to build the world’s biggest facial recognition system

ination online — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 11:22:01 +0000

In July, Bhuwan Ribhu received some very good news.

The child labor activist, who works for Indian NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, had launched a pilot program 15 months prior to match a police database containing photos of all of India’s missing children with another one comprising shots of all the minors living in the country’s child care institutions.

He had just found out the results. “We were able to match 10,561 missing children with those living in institutions,” he told CNN. “They are currently in the process of being reunited with their families.” Most of them were victims of trafficking, forced to work in the fields, in garment factories or in brothels, according to Ribhu.

This momentous undertaking was made possible by facial recognition technology provided by New Delhi’s police. “There are over 300,000 missing children in India and over 100,000 living in institutions,” he explained. “We couldn’t possibly have matched them all manually.”

Locating thousands of missing children is just one of the challenges faced by India’s overstretched police force in a nation of 1.37 billion people.

India has just 144 police officers for every 100,000 citizens, compared to 318 per 100,000 citizens in the European Union. In recent years, authorities have turned to facial recognition technology to make up for the shortfall.

New Delhi’s law enforcement agencies adopted the technology in 2018, and it’s also being used to police large events and fight crime in a handful of other states, including Andhra Pradesh and Punjab.

But India’s government now has a much more ambitious plan. It wants to construct one of the world’s largest facial recognition systems. The project envisions a future in which police from across the country’s 29 states and seven union territories would have access to a single, centralized database.

National database

The daunting scope of the proposed network is laid out in a detailed 172-page document published by the National Crime Records Bureau, which requests bids from companies to build the project. Interested parties had until October 11 to submit their proposal.

Currently unnamed, the project would match images from the country’s growing network of CCTV cameras against a database encompassing mug shots of criminals, passport photos and images collected by agencies such as the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

The platform would also enable searches based on photos uploaded from newspapers, images sent in by the public or artist sketches of suspected criminals. It would also recognize faces on closed-circuit cameras and “generate alerts if a blacklist match is found,” according to the tender document.

Security forces would be equipped with hand-held mobile devices enabling them to capture a face in the field and search it instantly against the national database, through a dedicated app.

The new facial recognition platform “can play a very vital role in improving outcomes” when it comes to identifying criminals, missing persons and bodies, according to the document published by the National Crime Records Bureau. It will also help police forces “detect crime patterns” and aid in crime prevention, it adds.

India’s crime rate is high, particularly within the poor areas dotting urban centers. In 2016, there were 709.1 offenses per 100,000 people in 19 big cities, compared to the national average of 379.3, according to the most recent official figures.

A foreign company

It is not known how many companies have submitted bids to install India’s national facial recognition system, nor how long the government will take to consider their applications.

About 80 representatives of vendors took part in a pre-bid meeting, which took place in the National Crime Records Bureau’s Delhi office at the end of July, according to minutes of the meeting seen by CNN. They discussed how the national database would be integrated with local police platforms and whether it should be able to identify people who have had plastic surgery.

“To be eligible to bid, a company has to have completed at least three facial recognition projects globally,” explains Apar Gupta of the Internet Freedom Foundation, an NGO which has put forward a legal notice to cancel the call for bids. “This disqualifies most Indian companies.”

The successful bidder will most likely be a consortium made up of a foreign company and a local partner — another requirement featured is for at least one of the bidding parties to be based in India.

IBM (IBM), Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Accenture (ACN) have all shown interest, according to Sivarama Krishnan, who leads cybersecurity at PricewaterhouseCoopers India. CNN reached out to all three companies, but none of them were willing to comment.

Having a foreign company set up such a critical part of India’s security apparatus could raise “national security issues,” worries Gupta.

In 2018, a controversy erupted when Ajay Maken, an opposition politician in New Delhi, accused the local government of having awarded a contract, through an Indian company, to provide nearly half of the CCTV cameras it plans to install in the capital to Prama Hikvision, a joint venture between Chinese company Hikvision and Indian company Prama Technologies, citing the risk for espionage.

Ashish P. Dhakan, Prama Hikvision’s CEO, confirmed that the company was supplying more than 140,000 CCTV cameras to New Delhi and has started installing them earlier this year.

“There is no evidence anywhere in the world, including India, to indicate that Hikvision’s products are used for unauthorized collection of information,” he told CNN. Hikvision has never conducted, nor will it conduct, any espionage-related activities for any government in the world.”

It is not the company’s only project in India. In 2018, Hikvision completed a network of surveillance cameras and command and control centers in Deesa City, Gujarat, according to a press release. In early October, it inaugurated India’s largest CCTV factory near Mumbai, with more than 2,000 employees. It describes itself a “market leader” in India for video surveillance solutions.

Hikvision has come under increasing scrutiny in the United States. In early October, it was included on a blacklist of 28 Chinese companies and government offices essentially barred from buying US products or importing American technology over their alleged role in facilitating human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.

‘Technologically challenging’

Experts doubt whether India can carry off such an ambitious project in such a short time. The system is expected to go live less than eight months after the contract is signed, according to the call for bids.

“A more realistic time frame would be 12 to 18 months,” says Krishnan, who describes the project as “technologically challenging.”

Creating the centralized platform will not be the hardest part. “India already has a national database with photos of all the criminals prosecuted in the country, which is regularly updated by law enforcement agencies in the states,” he explains. “It will just need to be linked up to the country’s CCTV system.” A pilot project carried out in New Delhi proved this was feasible, Krishnan says.

Blanketing the country with enough surveillance cameras — especially advanced ones equipped with facial recognition technology — will be a much bigger challenge, he believes. India lags behind other countries in terms of installed security cameras.

New Delhi has 10 CCTV cameras per 1,000 people, compared with 113 in Shanghai and 68 in London, according to data compiled by consumer website Comparitech. The figure is far lower in India’s rural areas, home to 66% of the country’s population.

“Many villages in the countryside don’t have a single surveillance camera,” says Krishnan.

But the country is catching up fast. New Delhi is about to have 330,000 new cameras installed, said the deputy chief minister of the capital, Manish Sisodia, in July as he kickstarted the process. The project has been touted as a way to improve women’s safety in India’s largest city, which in recent years has been the site of a number of high profile sexual attacks.

Facial recognition cameras were recently introduced in Bangalore airport and are being trialed in Hyderabad airport, according to Reuters. New Delhi airport also recently started using the technology to speed up security checks.

“A dozen of India’s largest cities are now pretty extensively covered, and 24 more are in the process of expanding their CCTV capabilities,” says Krishnan. He adds that most railway stations are now also equipped with surveillance cameras, and the government plans to have them all covered by 2021.

“This is meaningful in India: most citizens will at some point in their life walk through a railway station,” he said.

No legal safeguards

For privacy advocates, this is worrying. “India does not have a data protection law,” says Gupta. “It is also not planning to adopt a specific legal framework for the new facial recognition system, which means it will essentially be devoid of safeguards.”

He worries India’s facial recognition system could become a tool of social policing, used to punish petty offenses such as public littering or to control the whereabouts of ethnic minorities.

Further down the line, it might even be linked up to Aadhaar, India’s vast biometric database, which contains the personal details of 1.2 billion Indian citizens, enabling India to set up “a total, permanent surveillance state,” he adds.

CNN reached out to the National Crime Records Bureau but did not receive a response.

India has a history of privacy issues. In 2017, India’s Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling, decreeing that a right to privacy is part of the fundamental rights enshrined in the country’s constitution.

The ruling paved the way for the draft Personal Data Protection Bill, which was presented to government last year but hasn’t been introduced to Parliament yet.

Rights activists had argued that fingerprints and retinal scans collected under Aadhaar violated an individual’s right to privacy.

Their fears about an invasion of privacy appeared to be confirmed in early 2018 when Aadhaar suffered an alleged breach after reporters said they were able to buy access to citizens’ personal details for as little as $8.

Seeking to temper criticism of its prized new program, the government added new security measures. Later that year, in a separate ruling, the Supreme Court found the database did not violate the right to privacy.

The court did, however, introduce new restrictions on how Aadhaar information could be used, including measures preventing corporate bodies from demanding data.

Caught between the need to improve its policing outcomes and to protect its citizen’s privacy, India will be walking a tightrope when it comes to building its national facial recognition database.

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Alphabet scales back its smart city project in Toronto after backlash

ination online — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 11:18:47 +0000

Google’s parent companyhas scaled back its plans for developing a Toronto neighborhood to potentially get approval from local officialsfollowing a backlash that put the project’s future in doubt.

Waterfront Toronto, the government agency overseeing the development, announced Thursday that it has agreed to evaluate Alphabet’s plans after major concessions from the tech company, including a much smaller plot of land for the development and less control over data. The agreement keeps Alphabet’s project alive.

Alphabet’s goal to build a model neighborhood for the digital age has been controversial since it was announced in October 2017. Last year, Ontario’s auditor general saidthe process to select Alphabet was rushed. Several officials, including the head of Waterfront Toronto, have since resigned.

In June, Alphabet tried to win over Toronto with a 1,524-page plan detailing how the neighborhood would be designed and function.It described eco-friendly wood buildings as well asstreets designed for pedestrians, cyclists and self-driving cars. Critics objected to how much power Alphabet sought.

“They asked for too much land, too much control over data, and too much control over governance,” said Joe Cressy, a Toronto city councilman who sits on Waterfront Toronto’s board of directors. “These are significant changes that make taking the next step possible. Without them, we would have had a responsibility to say ‘no’.”

Alphabet’s development will be limited to 12 acres, rather than the 190 acres it described in its plan. Alphabet will not be the project’s lead developer, and there’s no guarantee that public transit will be extended to its site. Personal information collected in the development will be stored in Canada. Alphabet has also scrapped its plans for an urban data trust, a new and largely untested solution. It will comply with existing and future regulations.

“This project has been de-fanged,” tweeted Bianca Wylie, a Toronto activist and critic of the project.

Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovation subsidiary of Alphabet, said in a statement that it was pleased with Waterfront Toronto’s decision.

“We are working to demonstrate an inclusive neighbourhood here in Toronto where we can shorten commute times, make housing more affordable, create new jobs, and set a new standard for a healthier planet,” Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff said in a statement.

Hurdles still remain before Alphabet can break ground. There will be more public consultation, such as open forums to discuss the project, in early 2020. Waterfront Toronto will make its ultimate decision by the end of March.

“There is still much work to do,” said Stephen Diamond, Chair of the Waterfront Toronto board of directors. “Let me be clear: this is not a done deal.”

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New technology tackles London’s air pollution problem

ination online — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 11:15:59 +0000

Air pollution problems on the streets of London are nothing new, but some of the newest solutions to air pollution problems seem to be coming from Green Tomato Cars on the city streets.

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Ikea and the Queen of Sweden are designing homes for people with dementia

ination online — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 11:11:35 +0000

As Sweden’s population ages, the country faces a challenge: how can it maintain support for its citizens without breaking the bank?

Furniture giant Ikea has one idea.

The company is launching a new style of home for dementia patients through BoKlok, a joint venture with Swedish construction company Skanska that makes sustainable and affordable housing.

For the past three decades, the group has built more than 11,000 modular homes throughout Sweden, Finland and Norway using the Ikea model: strip out costs by producing large quantities of parts off-site. Lower income customers only pay what they can afford.

Now, with some modifications, the company thinks it can help people who struggle with memory loss tolive at home — saving the government money it would otherwise spend on care. It’s built the first customized homes just outside Stockholm.

Design tweaks include taking mirrors out of bathrooms and fitting kitchen appliances with old-fashioned knobs, rather than digital controls.

The developments also emphasize spending time outdoors, and will include “therapeutic” gardens and clubhouses for socializing. That could make it more appealing for a partner to move there, too.

“To take care of elderly people, that cost is exploding,” BoKlok CEO Jonas Spangenberg told CNN Business. “It’s much cheaper for society and the public to give them service back home.”

‘A growing problem’

From Japan to the United States, countries around the world are dealing with the effects of aging populations.

Sweden is no exception. By 2040, nearly one in four Swedes will be 65 years or older by 2040, in part because of the baby boom following World War II.

In a country like Sweden, where life expectancy is very high and most care for the elderly is government funded, that means a strain on spending and resources looms. One concern is the supply of affordable yet comfortable accommodations.

“We see a growing problem … that [people] are ending up in institutions where they do not want to end up,” Spangenberg said.

He continued: “If we can crack the code where you can continue to live at a home or an apartment that is more suitable for you, even with various syndromes, we believe we could do a … good thing for society.”

That’s the driving idea behind the company’s SilviaBo project. Its namesake, Queen Silvia of Sweden — whose mother suffered from Alzheimer’s — has been a partner from the beginning.

Before he died in 2018, Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad made a large donation to the project through the the queen’s foundation, which provides training on dementia care. She’s a member of the steering board, and has also been involved in the design process.

The Ikea model

BoKlok is in the early stages of launching SilviaBo in Sweden, its first market, and is starting to talk to local governments about land and zoning. Spangenberg said he expects progress in the next year.

So far, the company has built a small pilot with six apartments just outside Stockholm. Residents have not moved in yet due to an ongoing permit dispute with neighbors, but the company maintains a legal resolution is “on its way.”

The BoKlok approach to affordable housing has its roots in the Ikea way of thinking.

“BoKlok was designed the IKEA way: large volumes, low prices,” according to a Skanska blog post from 2011. “Industrialized production and large volumes — in other words, repetition — cut prices and save time in planning.”

The venture also controls its entire supply chain, including land acquisition, factory production, on-site construction, sales and marketing. This helps reduce costs.

SilviaBo homes have some key differences from traditional BoKlok builds, though the homes will operate under BoKlok’s “Left to Live” payment model, where residents are charged only what they can afford after taxes and living expenses.

“It’s still the same floor layout, but you need to understand how people with dementia react in certain situations,” Spangenberg said.

For example, there are no mirrors or dark-colored floors in the bathroom, which could scare or confuse residents.

SilviaBo also plans to offer a version of its home for people who are around 65-years-old and newly retired, with small adjustments and the option to easily add certain accessibility functions.

The pitch, according to Spangenberg: “Make that clever move now, before it’s too late.”

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‘Just Dunzo it.’ How Google’s favorite Indian startup is making city life easier

ination online — Sat, 07 Sep 2024 11:47:39 +0000

Life in India’s crowded and chaotic cities can be tough. An app backed by Google is promising to help with everyday tasks by asking “what would you like to Dunzo today?”

Dunzo offers to take care of your to-do list, picking up groceries, transporting packages or making a pharmacy run. The Bangalore-based company’s thousands of delivery drivers, identifiable by their bright green helmets with a lightning bolt logo, spend their days doing tasks that include picking up dry cleaning and delivering forgotten laptop chargers from homes to offices.

“Dunzo is like a browser on top of the real world, where you can transact, courier, and commute from one place to another without ever having to step into the real world,” founder and chief executive Kabeer Biswas told CNN Business. “Dunzo brings the city to you, no matter where, no matter what, no matter when,” he added.

Biswas came up with the idea when he moved to Bangalore — known as India’s Silicon Valley — in 2014 after selling his first startup in the northern tech hub of Gurgaon. Trying to find his way around a new city, he found himself wishing he could get “an extra pair of hands.”

He decided to start a group on WhatsApp, fulfilling many of the early requests himself like shopping for party supplies and helping get a car battery changed. Word spread quickly and as his phone got inundated with messages, he realized he needed to scale up.

With three co-founders, Biswas built a company that now does more than 2 million transactions a month across nine Indian cities including New Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Hyderabad. It’s even started a bike taxi service.

Dunzo charges customers based on the task and distance traveled, and says an average delivery costs less than a dollar. But the bulk of its revenue comes from the commissions 12,000 small businesses pay Dunzo to help them fulfill orders. Dunzo reported a 1.7 billion rupee ($23.5 million) loss in the last fiscal year. But operations in some cities are already “profitable or on the way to profitability,” it says.

“What worked for Dunzo was that it was the first of its kind in India, and perhaps the world, to do what it does, and the seamlessness with which it solved real problems,” Biswas said.

Two years ago, Google (GOOGL) came calling. The company participated in a $12.3 million fundraising round for Dunzo, its first direct investment in an Indian startup. Google (GOOGL) poured in more money last month, taking part in a $45 million round that reportedly valued Dunzo at $200 million. Dunzo declined to comment on its valuation.

Where Google has become synonymous with search, Dunzo is hoping to do the same with on-demand service in India. “Just Dunzo it” is becoming an increasingly common phrase as the app expands across the country’s biggest cities.

“With any brand that becomes a verb, it has to do with the emotional gratification that that brand provides with its product or service,” Biswas said. “Google simplified access to information, Uber made commuting more convenient, WhatsApp made communication easier and Dunzo has made getting things done faster,” he added.

Biswas has an ambitious vision for his app — he says the possibilities and potential uses are “limitless” — and he also has plans to expand. Dunzo aims to nearly triple the number of cities it operates in, targeting India’s top 25 in the next 18 months.

And what about going global? “Anything is possible.”

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Get ready for bigger paychecks: Record high increases expected in 2023

ination online — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 10:47:36 +0000

Employers are planning to increase their salary budgets by 4.6% next year, the highest expected annual jump in 15 years.

That’s according to the latest international survey from consulting firmWillis Towers Watson, which included responses from 1,550 US employers. The survey was conducted from October 3 to November 4.

A large majority of the organizations attributed the big bump to inflation and a tight labor market.

But with headline inflation still at 7.7%, any raise an employee gets below those levels effectively means they will be earning less because their paycheck won’t buy as much.

Oftenwhat companies expect to pay more for a given year and what they end up paying differs based on market conditions. This year, for instance, 70% of organizations surveyed by Willis Towers Watson said they spent more than they originally planned. Overall, employersended up spending 4.2% more on salaries this year than in 2021.

What does that mean for your raise?

Employers indicated they will use a host of ways to fund bigger salary increases next year:21% said they would reassess their total rewards package to ensure it has the biggest impact on retention and engagement; 17% said raise prices; and 12% saidrestructure and reduce headcount.

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Stocks have been clobbered this year, but people are still contributing to their retirement accounts

ination online — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 10:44:49 +0000

Stocks and bonds have been turning in volatile, bearish performances this year in an economy marked by high inflation and rising interest rates. But that hasn’t deterred most retirement savers, especially the youngest ones.

401(k) participants have held relatively steady in their savings contribution rates and in their portfolio allocations, according to new third quarter data from Fidelity Investments. And GenZers have actually increased their contributions.

By the end of the third quarter, the S&P 500 was down 25% for the year. The Nasdaq had fallen 33%. And the S&P US aggregate bond index was off about 13%.

So it’s not surprising that the average 401(k) account balance fell to $97,200 in the third quarter, according to Fidelity, one of the country’s leading providers of workplace retirement plans. That’s down 6% from the second quarter and 23% from a year earlier.

Butthe average savings rate among 401(k) participants, meanwhile, held relatively steady at 13.8%, which includes both employee and employer contributions. That’s only down a fraction from the 13.9% recorded in the second quarter and the 14% recorded in the first quarter.

Meanwhile GenZers in the workplace – those roughly ages 22 to 25 – increased their savings levels from 10% to 10.3%. That may account for why the youngest generation of today’s employees actually saw their account balances increase 1.2% relative to the second quarter, despite terrible market performance.

In terms of gender differences, men saved a bit more than women (14.5% versus 13.5%). And age wise, Boomers on the cusp of retirement saved the most (16.5%).

Allocations also held fairly steady, Fidelity found, with only 4.5% of 401(k) and 403(b) plan participants opting to make a change in the third quarter. The majority of those who did made just one change, and only 29% of them opted for a more conservative investment.

Despite the volatility in the markets and the economy this year, “Retirement savers have wisely chosen to avoid the drama and continue making smart choices for the long-term,” said Kevin Barry, president of Workplace Investing at

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What managers should know about ‘quiet quitting’

ination online — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 10:39:01 +0000

The now viral phrase “quiet quitting” is annoyingly imprecise and misleading.

Some say it means doing the bare minimum at work or just not going above and beyond. Others say it’s about setting healthy boundaries or not mindlessly buying into ‘hustle culture.’ And then there are those who say it’s about taking back control of your time and standing up to employers expecting you to do morewithout paying you more.

But one thing quiet quitting is not about is someoneactually quitting.At least not yet.

So managers and leaders, especially those facing staff shortages, might view the concept less as a threat than an opportunity to re-engage your employees by asking what really interests them in their work and letting them prioritize their efforts accordingly. And at the same time to better prioritize what is essential for teams to be doing, and what isn’t.

“It’s on [managers] to genuinely and authentically understand where people are coming from,” said Simone Ahuja, a Fortune 500 strategic consultant who focuses on fostering innovation. “One of the things [supporting] innovation is … radical prioritization by employees and managers and leaders.”

Consider possible origins

There is no universal reason why someone may quiet quit.

Maybe they’re experiencing burnout – which hit a lot of people during the pandemic.

Telling your bossthat you’re burnt out can be scary … and futile because managers often will say they’ll see what they can do, but then nothing happens, said Ashley Herd, founder of ManagerMethod.com and a former employment attorney and human resources executive.

So quiet quitting may be an employee’s way of “taking control and having boundaries,” Herd said. “Managers should be concerned if their expectation is for people to go above and beyond constantly. It doesn’t serve anyone if you burn out.”

Or maybe someone is choosing to give a little more priority to their life outside of work than they used to or than “hustle culture” tolerates.

That doesn’t mean, however, they don’t think work is important, or that they won’t do a good job.

But at the same time, Ahuja noted, an employee may not want to be defined entirely by their job. After all, the pandemic and a series of other ongoing crises in the world have reminded everyone just how fragile life is and have forced them to seriously reconsider what they want out of it.

And of course, there will always be the person who quiet quits because they hate their job, or are ill-suited to it and should be looking for something else or reassigned. But they don’t want to lose a paycheck.

In any case,assume nothing about anyone until you find out more. “Assumptions always lead us astray,” Ahuja said.

Talk to your team as a group and one-on-one

Getting buy-in from your employees on how best to achieve their team’s and their personal goals while also allowing everyone space for their lives outside of work can go a long way toward boosting retention.

“Have a genuine inquiry – people feel cared about when they’re invited in to a co-design process,” Ahuja said. “Ultimately, we all want to be in a sandbox that’s fun to play in.”

But figuring out how to make it all work for everyone involves a lot of open communication. For instance, don’t ask if or assert that someone is quiet quitting. “It has a negative connotation for very valid feelings,” Herd said.

Instead, she suggested, find out how they’ve been doing, how they feel about their workload, and whether they’re able to balance it with everything else they have going on.

And don’t just give lip service to feel-good ideas – e.g., that work shouldn’t be the only priority in people’s lives. Model the behavior. Be vocal about when you’re leaving or taking a day off or going offline to be with family, Herd said. And don’t send emails at all hours of the night.

It’s also always a great idea to publicly recognize a job well done. Just don’t limit the praise to employees who put in long hours to complete a project – which, sure, will be required at times in any workplace. Do the same for employees whose work is consistently excellent and completed within the normal hours of work. And hold that up as a good example for others to follow.

“Celebrate that,” Herd said. “[Ask] how are you doing it? We’d like to model that.

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Your iPhone will soon be able to replicate your voice after 15 minutes of training

ination online — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 12:35:04 +0000

Apple on Tuesday announced a series of new accessibility tools for the iPhone and iPad, including a feature that promises to replicate a user’s voice for phone calls after only 15 minutes of training.

With an upcoming tool called Personal Voice, users will be able to read text prompts to record audio and have the technology learn their voice. A related feature called Live Speech will then use the “synthesized voice” to read the user’s typed text aloud during phone calls, FaceTime conversations and in-person conversations. People will also be able to save commonly used phrases to use during live conversations.

The feature is one of several aimed at making Apple’s devices more inclusive for people with cognitive, vision, hearing and mobility disabilities. Apple said people who may have conditions where they lose their voice over time, such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) could benefit most from the tools.

“Accessibility is part of everything we do at Apple,” said Sarah Herrlinger, Apple’s senior director of Global Accessibility Policy and Initiatives, in a company blog post. “These groundbreaking features were designed with feedback from members of disability communities every step of the way, to support a diverse set of users and help people connect in new ways.”

Apple said the features will roll out later this year.

While these tools have potential to meet a genuine need, they also come at a moment when advancements in artificial intelligence have raised alarms about bad actors using convincing fake audio and video – known as “deepfakes” – to scam or misinform the public.

In the blog post, Apple said the Personal Voice feature uses “on-device machine learning to keep users’ information private and secure.”

Other tech companies have experimented with using AI to replicate a voice. Last year, Amazon said it’s working on an update to its Alexa system that would allow the technology to mimic any voice, even a deceased family member. (The feature has not yet been released).

In addition to the voice features, Apple announced Assistive Access, which combines some of the most popular iOS apps, such as FaceTime, Messages, Camera, Photos, Music and Phone, into one Calls app. The interface includes high-contrast buttons, large text labels, an option for an emoji-only keyboard and the ability to record video messages for people who may prefer visual or audio communications.

Apple is also updating its Magnifier app for the visually impaired. It will now include a detection mode to help people better interact with physical objects. The update would allow someone, for example, to hold up an iPhone camera in front of a microwave and move their finger across the keypad as the app labels and announces the text on the microwave’s buttons.

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This jet-propelled, self-inflating paddleboard is making a splash

ination online — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 12:27:15 +0000

In the world of water sports, stand-up paddleboarding (SUP) has been riding a wave of popularity in recent years. But the sport requires a degree of strength and stamina.

Inspired by his daughters’ struggles to navigate strong currents, Slovenian entrepreneur Sebastjan Sitar is on a mission to make the sport more accessible to people, regardless of their physical ability.

In 2016, he founded SipaBoards in Kamnik, Slovenia, and created the world’s first jet-propelled, self-inflating paddleboard. Although electric and self-inflating boards exist separately, Sitar’s design was the first to incorporate both features in one board.

“The idea was not to change the sport but to give it a wider audience. People feel much safer if they know an engine will help them get back to shore,” he said.

The next wave of technology

The Sipa Drive All-Rounder is the company’s latest e-SUP model, featuring a fully integrated jet engine powered by dual batteries that last up to six hours.

The board also has a built-in compressor that inflates it at the push of a button, promising optimal pressure in a matter of minutes. The board can reach up to 4.3 miles per hour on the water and comes with a Bluetooth smart paddle that acts as a remote for the motor.

Riders can inflate their board and control its speed through the SipaBoards app, which also monitors battery life and tracks the distance covered.

“The engine is like a small submarine. It has an easy-to-remove cover so you can access the batteries, recharge the board, and hit the water,” Sitar said.

A remote control attached to the paddle allows users to control the board’s speed via Bluetooth

Nejc Ferjan

Currents of change

When SipaBoards first introduced the concept of an electric motor in its paddleboards, people were hesitant to combine electricity with water, according to Sitar. But he says its innovative design ensures the rider’s safety.

“Once people try the board and experience how stable and enjoyable it is to use, we find that they quickly change their minds,” Sitar said.

There are now other options for those looking to power their paddleboards. Scubajet produces a portable jet system that can be used by divers and swimmers, but can also be fitted to canoes and SUPs, and Jobe produces an SUP with an integrated motor, which can also inflate it.

With the global standup paddleboard market forecast to be worth $1.65 billion in 2023, according to market research company Fact.MR, Sitar believes that SipaBoards’ electric models will revolutionize the sport of stand-up paddleboarding in a similar way that electric bikes have transformed cycling – letting users go faster and travel longer distances with less effort.

However, they are considerably more expensive than standard inflatable SUPs, which can cost upwards of $160. Sitar says his various e-SUP models are now available in 38 markets worldwide, starting at €3,025 (about $3,260). SipaBoards is now trying to set up SUP rental locations worldwide and is aiming to partner with 30 rental locations before the start of the 2024 season.

“We want to create a social network for electric water sports, where people can share their experiences, create new paddle routes, and connect with other riders,” Sitar said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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