Apple engineer accused of stealing self-driving car secrets???

 Apple engineer accused of stealing self-driving car secrets-

A former Apple engineer has been charged with stealing the company's self-driving car technology, almost five years after he fled to China.

Prosecutors accuse Weibao Wang, 35, of stealing thousands of files containing proprietary information while secretly working for an unnamed Chinese company.

Six counts of theft or attempted theft of trade secrets are in the indictment.

This is the third time an ex-Apple employee has been accused of stealing autonomous tech secrets for China.

The justice department alleges Mr Wang stole documents containing the source code for the software and hardware behind the self-driving systems.

Mr Wang joined Apple in March 2016 as a member of the team that developed technology for autonomous systems, the justice department said.

He signed a confidentiality agreement about the project, which was at the time known to very few people within the company.

Mr Wang left Apple on 16 April 2018, the indictment said. Unbeknownst to the firm, he had accepted an offer more than four months earlier to work as an engineer at another company developing self-driving cars, said US prosecutors.

That company, unnamed in the indictment, is based in China, said prosecutors.

Law enforcement searched Mr Wang's home in Mountain View, California, in June 2018 while he was there.

He told authorities he had no plans to leave the US. That same day, he bought a one-way ticket from San Francisco to Guangzhou, China, the justice department said.

An analysis of the devices seized from Mr Wang's home showed he had stored large quantities of Apple data on self-driving car technology.

In a press conference, the US Attorney for the Northern District of California, Ismail Ramsey, said Mr Wang remained in China.

If he were ever extradited and convicted, he could face 10 years in prison for each of the six charges.

Two other former Apple employees have previously been charged in similar cases involving the theft of trade secrets.

Xiaolang Zhang pleaded guilty last year in a court in San Jose, California. He was arrested in 2018 as he tried to board a flight to China.

Another ex-Apple employee, Jizhong Chen, faces similar charges.

 

Amazon's Jeff Bezos to help Nasa return to Moon -

The US space agency has enlisted a second billionaire to help it put astronauts back on the Moon.

Nasa is already working with Elon Musk's SpaceX firm on a descent system based on its novel Starship rocket that will touch down as early as 2025.

It has now also awarded Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos a contract to build a landing craft to take a crew down to the lunar surface later this decade.

His Blue Origin company will produce a more conventional-looking vehicle.

Mr Bezos will have assistance from some well established names in the American aerospace sector, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper and Astrobotic.

Blue Origin secured the contract in a competition with Dynetics and Northrop Grumman.

Mr Bezos's company, which is based in Kent in the US State of Washington, will receive just over $3.4bn (£2.7bn) from Nasa as part of the contract. And the firm will be spending "well north of $3.4bn" of its own money on the project.

"We go to the Moon, to learn, to live, to invent, to create all these things to be successful at the Moon, to go to Mars," said agency Administrator Bill Nelson.

"The great adventure of humankind pressing out into the cosmos is here. And this is a part of it."

It's now more than 50 years since astronauts last set foot on the Moon.

Nasa has laid out a roadmap to achieve a more sustained human presence on Earth's natural satellite the next time around.

The agency's Artemis programme envisions stays of weeks on the lunar surface rather than just days, as was the case in the 1960s and 70s.

SpaceX has been asked to put down two astronauts at the Moon's south pole in late 2025 or 2026, and then again in 2028. These are the Artemis III and Artemis IV missions.

Blue Origin's 16m-tall, 45-tonne vehicle is called "Blue Moon". It would do the job on Artemis V, which is set to occur no earlier than 2029.

"Before the first crew landing occurs, we will be landing an exact copy of that lander prior to that - one year prior. So, we will be testing out full lander systems and the full architecture prior to any astronauts entering the vehicle," explained John Couluris, Blue Origin's vice president for lunar transportation.

The lander could also be configured simply to deliver cargo to the lunar surface - a minimum of 20 tonnes, the executive added.

Blue Origin plans to use its own rocket, known as New Glenn, to get Blue Moon off Earth (although this launcher has yet to make a debut flight). The dimensions of the lander have been determined by the volume and mass parameters of the rocket, which has a 7m-wide payload bay.

Artemis I has already occurred, in November last year: An uncrewed test of the Nasa rocket and capsule that will take astronauts to the vicinity of the Moon. Artemis II is scheduled for next year and will see a crew of four do a simple loop around the Moon.

For all the crewed missions, the idea is for astronauts to transfer to dedicated landing craft that will be waiting for them in lunar orbit. They'd go down to the surface in these vehicles, complete their exploration and then come back up.

Towards the end of the decade, Nasa intends for the transfers to be carried out at a new space station above the Moon called Gateway.

SpaceX was awarded its contract in 2021. It wants to use a variant of its huge, next-generation Starship rocket system, which debuted four weeks ago.

The maiden flight was terminated after four minutes when the vehicle spun out of control. But SpaceX is already talking about a second outing this summer.

Starship's readiness is one of the key factors that will determine whether Nasa can keep its Artemis programme on track. Right now, many commentators consider a first crewed landing on the Moon in late 2025 to be a very ambitious target.

 

Elon Musk says Microsoft controls ChatGPT maker OpenAI, CEO Satya Nadella says factually not.....

Elon Musk said in an interview that ChatGPT maker OpenAI existed because of him. The Tesla owner states that he invested roughly $50 million into the company during its formation year.

In Short

• OpenAI has a multi-year partnership with Microsoft.
• Elon Musk says OpenAI has turned into a for-profit from a non-profit firm.
• Musk asks, "What exactly is the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft?"

 Tesla and Twitter owner Elon Musk is unhappy with the latest advancements in generative AI and has criticised the maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI for turning into a for-profit from a non-profit company. He also suggests that Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars into OpenAI, has more control than OpenAI leadership. However, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella notes that Musk's claims are "factually incorrect."

During an interview with CNBC, Musk stated that ChatGPT maker OpenAI existed because of him. The AI research company was founded in 2015 as a non-profit, but two executives later formed a "capped-profit" entity called OpenAI LP. Musk states that he invested roughly $50 million into the company during its formation year and played a key role in hiring. He added the name "OpenAI" was suggested by him.

"What exactly is the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft? I worry that Microsoft made it more in control. As a part of the Microsoft investment, they have rights to all of the software, all of the model weights and everything," Musk said.

Following Musk's interview, Nadella told CNBC that these claims are "factually incorrect." The Microsoft CEO adds that he has "a lot of respect" for Musk, but the Tesla owner is wrong. Nadella adds, "OpenAI is very grounded in its mission of being controlled by a non-profit board. We have a non-controlling interest in it. We have a great commercial partnership in it."

Nadella referred to OpenAI LM and its partnership with a "capped profit" company focused on a "mission of fundamentally pursuing this very powerful technology." He notes that Microsoft is the only for-profit company comfortable working on a non-profit firm at this scale.

Interestingly, Musk's concerns may not be completely far-fetched since Microsoft has already improved several of its platforms, including Bing, Ege, and Microsoft Office, with ChatGPT's underlying technology. As a part of its deal, Microsoft can leverage ChaGPT's base GPT language model technology and even re-package to select customers. A report recently claimed that Microsoft has been working on a ChatGPT version for enterprise customers with a hefty subscription. This version will be focused on privacy as the servers are going to be different.

This is not the first time Musk expressed concerns about ChatGPT and ChatGPT-like technologies. The Tesla CEO, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, was a signatory to a March open letter asking for a pause in advanced AI development.

 

Grab your popcorn, Twitter flooded with full movies after Elon Musk announced uploading of long videos

In Short

• Elon Musk has allowed subscribers to upload two hour long video.
• Musk took to sharing the new Twitter feature, which invoked mixed reactions from the public
• Twitter users have predicted that the new feature will impact YouTube deeply.

 If you don’t like paying huge subscription fee of OTT platforms or think that downloading movies from torrents, worry no more as you can now watch them on Twitter. No, Elon Musk has not partnered with any streaming giant for Twitter but has now allowed the Twitter Blue subscribers to upload video of up to 2 hours or 8GB. Previously, uploading lengthy videos was not an option the Twitter users had. It is still unavailable for people who have not subscribed to Twitter Blue, but nothing stops them from viewing the movies that have been uploaded by other Twitter users.

Twitter users have been quick to take advantage of the new feature that allows them to upload long videos, with some even posting full movies.The new feature was announced by Elon Musk, who recently acquired Twitter for $44 billion. Musk has said that he wants to make Twitter a more open and free platform, and he believes that the ability to upload long videos will help to achieve that goal.

So far, users have been uploading a wide variety of videos, including trailers for upcoming movies, music videos, and even full-length films. A Twitter user uploaded the complete Shrek movie video on the platform. Another user uploaded the entire Evil Dead arises movie on Twitter, which is 1 hour 33 minutes long. Several of these movies that people have uploaded have been removed already. And the most interesting bit is that people are uploading the video right below Musk’s tweet in which he had announced that the Blue subscriber can upload videos of around 2 hour video.

 * Musk took to sharing the new Twitter feature, which invoked mixed reactions from the public. He wrote, “Twitter Blue Verified subscribers can now upload 2 hour videos (8GB)!

* Twitter users have predicted that the new feature will impact YouTube deeply. One of the users even “R.I.P YouTube” while another wrote, “New Netflix”.

People uploading pirated content are in a way violating Twitter’s policies. It is a violation of Twitter's copyright policy, which states that users are not allowed to upload copyrighted content without the permission of the copyright holder. Twitter has a team of copyright specialists who are responsible for identifying and removing pirated content from the platform. However, it is a challenge to keep up with the amount of pirated content that is being uploaded to Twitter.

If you see a pirated movie on Twitter, you can report it to Twitter by clicking the "Report Tweet" button. Twitter will then review the report and take action if it is found to be in violation of the copyright policy.

Google releases its policy agenda for responsible progress in AI

Google intends to encourage governments to focus on unlocking opportunity, promoting responsibility, and enhancing security.

Artificial intelligence is making rapid strides across industries. There is no aspect of human life that has been left untouched by the explosion of AI technologies in the last few years. As developments in AI gained momentum, leaders in technology have been scrambling to offer the best of AI in their products and services. Amid the ongoing AI arms race, Google has come out with a white paper enumerating its policy agenda for AI progress.

The policy paper comes days after the Google I/O event where CEO Sundar Pichai demonstrated the company’s AI-backed services and its broad vision for integrating AI technologies in its products and services. According to Google, advancements in AI models are not only creating new ways to engage with information but are also enabling people to break into the new scientific and technological ground.

The company, while acknowledging that it is at the cusp of a new era, asserted its commitment to moving forward boldly, responsibly, and in partnership with others. The Alphabet Inc -owned company stated that calls for a moratorium come with the risk of missing out on the ‘substantial’ benefits of AI and falling behind those who embrace its potential. Instead, the company is focusing on broad-based efforts across governments, companies, universities, etc., to translate the AI breakthroughs into benefits that are ubiquitous at the same time mitigating risks. With the white paper with policy recommendations for AI, Google intends to encourage governments to focus on unlocking opportunity, promoting responsibility, and enhancing security.

Unlocking Opportunities

Google in its white paper has stated that economies that will embrace AI will witness significant growth as it will help various industries produce more complex and valuable products and services. Harnessing AI will help increase productivity despite rising demographic challenges. AI will also boost small businesses and employees too can focus on more rewarding aspects of their jobs. The paper states that in order to unlock the economic opportunities that AI offers, policymakers should focus on innovation and competitiveness, they should promote legal frameworks that support AI innovation, and also prepare their workforce for AI-driven jobs.

Promoting responsibility while reducing risks

The paper states that if AI is not developed and deployed responsibly it could amplify existing societal issues which consist of misinformation, discrimination, and misuse of tools. Google says the absence of trust and confidence in AI systems will limit businesses and consumers from reaping the benefits of AI. The paper suggests a multi-stakeholder approach to governance in order to tackle its challenges. While some challenges may require fundamental research, some can be addressed by developing common standards, shared best practices, and risk-based regulation. The paper also highlights the importance of international alignment to develop common policy approaches that are in sync with democratic values.

Enhancing security

While AI is aiding advanced security operations, it could also enable sophisticated cyberattacks. Since AI has implications for global security, the first step is to place technical and commercial guardrails to prevent malicious use of AI. Governments should explore next-generation trade control policies for specific AI-powered applications that are considered to be security risks. Besides, there is also a need for governments, civil society, and academics to gain a sound understanding of the implications of powerful AI systems. Google’s document says that any progress in enhancing security will only happen with cooperation in the form of joint research, adoption of best-in-class data governance, and public-private forums to share information on AI security and threats.