Allegations of misconduct at one of India s largest tech companies have sent its stock plunging. Infosys (INFY) shares dropped more than 16% in Mumbai on Tuesday after the company said it was investigating two whistleblower complaints detailing alleged unethical practices. A member of Infosys board received the complaints on September 30, chairman Nandan Nilekani said in a statement. The first complaint contains allegations of "disturbing unethical practices" while the second "largely deals with allegations relating to the CEO s international travel," he said. The company first disclosed the complaints on Monday. The company is also aware of a letter written to US authorities under a whistleblower protection program, which refers to emails and voice recordings supporting the allegations, Nilekani said. "Although we have not been provided any of the emails or voice recordings, we will ensure that the generalized allegations are investigated to the fullest extent," he added. The complaints accuse the company s CEO of under-reporting costs in order to inflate profits and hiding "critical information" from auditors and the board, according to multiple Indian newspapers, which said they had obtained copies of the alleged complaints. CNN Business has not seen or independently verified the complaints, and an Infosys spokesperson declined to comment on the allegations beyond Nilekani s statement. The CEO, Salil Parekh, and CFO, Nilanjan Roy, have both been recused from the matter, Nilekani said. The investigation will be conducted by Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co., a prominent Indian law firm. "These complaints are being dealt with in an objective manner," Nilekani said. CNN Business has attempted to contact Parekh and Roy directly. The Infosys spokesperson said neither executive intended to comment at this time. Infosys, headquartered in Bangalore, is one of India s largest outsourcing companies. It reported revenue of $11.8 billion in the last fiscal year and has nearly 230,000 employees worldwide, including thousands in the United States. This is not the first time the company has been hit by controversy over its finances. Parekh s predecessor, Vishal Sikka, stepped down in 2017 after a public spat with some of its founders over executive pay and other issues.

With the US presidential election barely a year away, Facebook is still working to get its house in order. Facebook (FB) said Monday that it is taking new steps to clearly identify state-run media for users and to better protect the accounts of political candidates and officials as part of a broader effort to prevent its platform from being abused to interfere with the 2020 US elections. Starting next month, Facebook will label publications that are "wholly or partially under the editorial control of their government as state-controlled media," the company said in a blog post Monday. These Facebook pages will be held to "a higher standard of transparency because they combine the opinion-making influence of a media organization with the strategic backing of a state." Last year, YouTube added labels to videos that are posted by state-funded media outlets, linking to the broadcaster s Wikipedia page. But outlets like the BBC, a publicly funded broadcaster independent from the government, get a different label than an outlet like Russia Today. "We expect Facebook s efforts to label content in this manner to be about as apt as its blocking of RT s pages containing Borscht recipes last week," RT spokesperson Anna Belkina told CNN Business. "We will likely see the same labeling shenanigans as we did from Google, for whom some publicly funded outlets were more "state funded" than others, facts notwithstanding." Even as it takes steps to protect the next election, Facebook continues to grapple with bad actors from the last US presidential election. The company announced Monday that it removed 50 Instagram accounts and one Facebook account, some of which posed as locals from US swing states. Facebook says the accounts "showed some links" to the Internet Research Agency, a troll group with links to the Kremlin and a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller s Russia investigation. On a conference call with reporters Monday, Zuckerberg said the company s ability to proactively catch and disclose these coordinated networks of accounts shows that Facebook s defensive systems are working. He also stressed that Facebook now has more than 35,000 people working on safety and security efforts. The policy updates and account takedowns come as Facebook and Zuckerberg confront continued scrutiny from politicians on Capitol Hill and on the campaign trail. Democratic presidential candidates including Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden have leveled sharp criticisms against the company in recent days for its policy of exempting ads by politicians from third-party fact-checking. The criticism followed the company s decision to allow a video ad from President Donald Trump s reelection campaign that falsely accused Biden of corruption for his role in Ukraine policy during the Obama administration. When pressed about the policy again on the call, Zuckerberg stressed that other tech and media companies also ran the ad. "I know that Facebook has been at the center of a lot of these debates," he said. But, he added, it s "really not a policy area where we are an outlier." (Broadcast networks and stations are required by law to run the ad; CNN, which is not subject to the same laws and regulations because it is a cable network, has opted not to air it.) Zuckerberg once again framed his company s stance on political advertising -- and its decision not to do away with it on the platform entirely, despite its minimal contribution to Facebook s bottom line -- as a matter of giving people a "voice." "This isn t about money," he said. "Ads are an important way to get your message out and in front of people... Banning ads would favor incumbents and whoever the media would cover most." At another point on the call, however, Zuckerberg conceded that incumbents "can raise more money" than their challengers to pay for more ads on Facebook and other platforms. Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify before Congress on Wednesday in a hearing that is expected to focus on Facebook s plans for a digital currency. At least some of the scrutiny over Facebook s crypto plans could give the company even more power, at a time when its size and influence are already under investigation at the federal level. In the face of that scrutiny, Zuckerberg has engaged in what appears to be a public relations campaign to put himself out there more. He gave a speech at Georgetown University last week describing politicians calls to clamp down on tech companies as an effort to restrict the freedom of expression, followed by interviews with several major media outlets. "I get that a lot of people are angry at us," Zuckerberg said in an interview with NBC Nightly News Lester Holt that is set to air Monday night. "Part of growing up for me has just been realizing that it is more important to be understood than it is to be liked, and I believe it very strongly." It s unclear how much Monday s announcements, or Zuckerberg s PR campaign, will do to make politicians like Facebook again. Brian Fung, Hadas Gold and Donie O Sullivan contributed to this report

The messaging app Kik was on the verge of shutting down, but a holding company, MediaLab, bought it and will invest in its future, the company said. At its peak, Kik had hundreds of millions of registered users and the company earned a private market valuation of $1 billion, placing it in the elite ranks of tech unicorns. But in September, Kik Interactive announced it would shut down the messenger app after a fight with regulators. The company has been spared from closure by MediaLab, which also owns Whisper, another anonymous social media app on iOS and Android. "We believe that Kik s best days remain ahead of it," MediaLab wrote in a statement Friday on Kik s website. The company said that to cover the app s expenses, it s introducing ads. It also said it would develop the app to be faster, more reliable and remove bugs. The Kik Interactive team did not return a request for comment Saturday on whether it still plans to layoff its Kik staff. Kik Interactive said in September it plans to focus its remaining resources entirely on growing its cryptocurrency, Kin, the subject of a recent lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC sued Kik in June for raising about $100 million in an ICO, or initial coin offering, without properly registering the offering. In a September blog post, Kik CEO and founder Ted Livingston said the legal battle with the SEC had been "a long and expensive process to drain our resources." Launched in 2010, Kik pulled in a wide swath of users with the promise of being able to chat anonymously. Users were not required to register with a phone number or other personal details. In 2015, the app received $50 million in funding from Chinese tech giant Tencent. It grew alongside other popular messaging apps, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram and Line, but the anonymity feature became a double-edged sword. Headlines appeared on how child predators contacted minors through the app and the anonymity feature hurt law enforcement s ability to track criminals. As of 2016, Kik had 300 million registered users. It no longer breaks out its number of active users.

Universal has teamed up with tech giant Alibaba, a move that could be a big boost to the entertainment company s efforts to lure Chinese costumers to its upcoming Beijing theme park. The companies announced on Thursday that Universal Beijing will be tapping into Alibaba s (BABA) expansive suite of digital apps and services. Visitors to the Beijing theme park -- set to open in 2021 -- will be able to use Alipay s facial recognition technology to enter, pay for meals and merchandise, and rent lockers at the park. Alibaba-affiliated Alipay and WeChat Pay (owned by rival Tencent (TCEHY)) are China s two most popular mobile payment apps. Universal Beijing visitors will also be able to use Alibaba s food delivery platform, Koubei, to get food and drink recommendations and order meals at the park online to avoid waiting in line. People can also buy tickets to the theme park on Alibaba-owned online travel site Fliggy. The tie-up with Alibaba will make it "fun and easy" for customers to enjoy Universal Beijing and will "take the theme park experience to a new level," Brian Roberts, chairman and chief executive officer of Universal s parent company Comcast (CCZ), said in a statement. It also gives Universal easy access to the more than 600 million monthly active users on Alibaba s various apps and online platforms. China s enthusiasm for big theme parks has been on a bit of a roller coaster ride in recent years. Disney (DIS) opened its $5.5 billion Shanghai resort in 2016 with much fanfare, including speeches from top Chinese officials. But the mega theme park has struggled with China s cost-conscious consumers, and there have reportedly been several complaints against its ticketing policy and food and beverage prices. During its second quarter earnings report in May, Disney said the Shanghai resort was suffering from "lower attendance" compared to the same period a year earlier. Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin wanted to crush Disney s business in China with his own theme parks. But Wang s firm Wanda gave up its controlling stake in the parks after the company came under pressure to rein in investments and capital outflows.

Bye bye to bunny hops: when US astronauts next touch down on the Moon, expect them to walk almost as they do on Earth, thanks to a new generation of spacesuits offering key advantages over those of the Apollo-era. Prototypes of the Orion Crew Survival Suit that will be worn on the journey and the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) for the lunar surface were unveiled at NASA s Washington headquarters Tuesday ahead of the agency s planned return to the Moon by 2024. Standing in front of a giant US flag, spacesuit engineer Kristine Davis wore a pressurized red, blue and white xEMU suit, showing off a vastly improved range of motion thanks to bearings systems on the waist, arms, and legs. They are also extendable and therefore one-size-fits-all, meaning there won t be a repeat of an embarrassing flub in March that caused the first all-female spacewalk to be aborted when a second medium-sized suit wasn t available. “If we remember the Apollo generation, we remember Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, they bunny hopped on the surface of the Moon,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine told a hall filled with students and interns at the space agency. “Now we re going to be able to walk on the surface of the Moon, which is very different from the suits of the past.” Another key innovation is the xEMU s unlimited capacity to absorb carbon dioxide, a byproduct of respiration that is also poisonous in high quantities. It achieves this through a system that both absorbs and then removes the gas into the vacuum of space, unlike current systems that merely absorb it until its reaches a saturation point. The crew survival suit, meanwhile, is designed to provide full life support for up to six days a scenario that could be required, for example, if a meteorite punches a hole in the spacecraft s hull. Under the Artemis mission, NASA plans to land on the Moon s South Pole in order to exploit its water ice, discovered in 2009, both for life support purposes and to split into hydrogen and oxygen for use as rocket propellant. The agency views its return to the Moon as a proving ground for an onward mission to Mars in the 2030s.

Google has met few daring ideas it doesn t like. But three years ago, the idea of a self-driving bicycle was just too much. It mocked the concept of an autonomous bicycle in an April Fools Day video. Why would anyone need a bike that rode itself? Since then the electric bike and scooter-sharing craze has stormed into cities. Companies have burned through cash as fast as they ve raised it, largely due to the high costs needed to pay a staff to corral badly parked scooters and re-charge them. But now the joke might actually be on Google. Startups, investors and even companies as big as Uber (UBER) are exploring self-driving bikes and scooters as a way to lower operations costs and soothe strained relations with cities. Experts say autonomous scooters could one day independently move themselves to a better parking spot or a neighborhood where there s more demand. These unoccupied vehicles, increasingly known as "ghost scooters," might even drive themselves to pick up a rider, similar to an Uber or Lyft car. In some cases, humans in a teleoperations center would guide the scooters across streets and down sidewalks. "We re going to be laughing next year when there s going to be a lot more semi-autonomous scooters and bikes than Waymos on the roads," said Dmitry Shevelenko, co-founder of Tortoise, which builds autonomy into scooters. Tortoise is among the companies automating scooters. It is finalizing a deal with an Atlanta suburb to test its autonomous technology and has struck partnerships with several global scooter operators. The effort comes at a time when self-driving car and truck companies are delaying deployments as they work to prove their complex technology is safe. Scooters and bikes are lighter and slower than cars and trucks, making them simpler and cheaper to automate and operate remotely. Another company, called CtrlWorks, is already testing its own autonomous scooters. The Singapore-based business operates a small fleet in Malaysia. And Ninebot, one of the largest scooter manufacturers, unveiled an autonomous scooter earlier this year. "The holy grail is that I reserve a scooter, it comes to me and then I ride it to a bus station," Tony Ho, Ninebot vice president of global business development, told CNN Business, of the general value of autonomous scooters. It plans to start a pilot on college campuses later this year. Autonomous scooters and bikes are on Uber s watch list, too. The rideshare company has a small team looking at how cheap sensors and computers could solve bike and scooter challenges. It found through early experiments the added costs of automating a bike or scooter would likely pay off with operations savings, according to Alan Wells, who leads new mobility robotics. But not everyone s convinced, including Sanjay Dastoor, CEO of Skip Scooters, which operates shared scooters in San Francisco and Washington, DC. "If you want to build a very durable, long-lasting vehicle that doesn t waste a lot of spare parts, that can be in conflict with a vehicle that has a bunch of advanced sensors on it," Dastoor said. Scooter companies are relying on cameras, radar and ultrasonic sensors to safely guide their vehicles. Tortoise estimates the cost of automating a scooter at about $100 more in initial parts. No matter how the financial picture turns out, cultural challenges will continue to loom. Scooter riding on sidewalks is controversial due to safety issues. When Singapore-based CtrlWorks launched scooters in its hometown last year, concerned pedestrians thought the vehicles were runaway scooters and tried to stop them. In some cases, children hopped on the slowly moving scooters, according to CEO Sim Kai. CtrlWorks, which operates under the brand ScootBee, first had its scooters move at a brisk walk — 3.1 mph — but has since slowed them to below 2 mph now. "The last thing we want is to scare people," Kai said. Bolt, another scooter company, envisions autonomous scooters that deliver themselves to customers. It plans to limit its autonomous scooters to 1 mph during high-traffic times and 5 mph at night when sidewalks are largely vacant. Autonomous scooters are in their earliest days, but some people believe their growth is inevitable. Matt Brezina, a San Francisco angel investor who has funded scooter, bike and autonomous vehicle startups, expects autonomous bikes and scooters to be a normal part of urban life in 10 years. But in the short term, he anticipates a backlash, including vandalism and theft. "The next two years are going to be pretty rough. But it was not common 10 years ago to have a cell phone out at dinner and now everyone does," Brezina said of how things will change over time. Although scooter companies are racing to deploy scooters worldwide, the push for autonomy is a bit slower to help minimize the issues. Gradual rollouts will give people and governments more time to adjust and build a comfort level with the new technology. "If a bigger company inundated a city and changed their fleet overnight, it would probably do more harm than good," said Matt Turzo, chief operating officer of the European scooter operator Wind, which is working with Tortoise to test autonomy technology. The two largest US scooter companies, Lime and Bird, which are known for how fast they move, both declined to comment on if they re developing autonomous scooters. No matter who is making autonomous scooters or how quickly they arrive, unknown challenges will arise too. "When it comes to cutting edge technologies, we just don t know where the problems might lie," Ninebot s Ho said. "What if the scooter somehow wandered on its own and went rogue?"

Red Sea Reserve officials have intensified efforts to identify a diver from a diving center in the Red Sea for harassing a whale shark while recording a video, frightening the rare animal and causing it to flee. The officials warned against any practice that would harm the marine environment, and stressed no complacency in applying penalties on violators, which amounts to a three-month suspension on the boat used to commit the violation and a fine of LE50,000. Officials from the Rescue and Environmental Protection Society have appealed to authorities, launched awareness campaigns to protect the whale shark known locally as the “Bahloul” and maintain its presence in Hurghada waters, after receiving several reports that Egyptian and foreign divers have harassed the peaceful fish. The President of the Society, Hassan al-Tayyeb, recommended observing the whale shark from a safe distance and not to touch, chase or disturb it with the camera s flash. He also demanded applying the natural reserves law against violators, pointing out that the whale shark appearing in the Red Sea showcases the rich variety of the Red Sea s marine environment. Whale sharks have appeared several times in three different areas across the Red Sea, including Port Ghalleb, the al-Fanous area, and between the two islands of Giftun, Red Sea Reserves manager Ahmed Ghallab said in an earlier statement. It was last monitored in November 2018. Marine biologists consider the appearance of the animal a rare event, which demonstrates the success of protection efforts for the Red Sea s environment, along with Egypt s commitment to international agreements in this regard, leading to the settlement of the whale shark in the Red Sea. Whale sharks have no teeth, filtering in the water to feed. They owe its name to its gargantuan size, with the largest adults reaching up to 13 meters in length, making them among the largest species of fish. As they primarily feed on plankton, they pose no danger to humans. It weighs up to 21.5 tonnes and is the only type of Rhincodon genus belonging to the Rhincodontidae family (formerly called Rhinodontes before 1984). Whale sharks are found in tropical and warm oceans and live in the open seas. It can reach 70 years old and emerged about 60 million years ago. Hunting whale sharks is banned in Egypt as the species is endangered, and concentrated efforts have been made to preserve the Red Sea ecosystem, home to several other rare and endangered species.

Designers of machine translation tools still mostly rely on dictionaries to make a foreign language understandable. But now there is a new way: numbers. Facebook researchers say rendering words into figures and exploiting mathematical similarities between languages is a promising avenue — even if a universal communicator a la Star Trek remains a distant dream. Powerful automatic translation is a big priority for internet giants. Allowing as many people as possible worldwide to communicate is not just an altruistic goal, but also good business. Facebook, Google and Microsoft as well as Russia s Yandex, China s Baidu and others are constantly seeking to improve their translation tools. Facebook has artificial intelligence experts on the job at one of its research labs in Paris. Up to 200 languages are currently used on Facebook, said Antoine Bordes, European co-director of fundamental AI research for the social network. Automatic translation is currently based on having large databases of identical texts in both languages to work from. But for many language pairs there just aren t enough such parallel texts. That s why researchers have been looking for another method, like the system developed by Facebook which creates a mathematical representation for words. Each word becomes a “vector” in a space of several hundred dimensions. Words that have close associations in the spoken language also find themselves close to each other in this vector space. – From Basque to Amazonian? – “For example, if you take the words cat and dog , semantically, they are words that describe a similar thing, so they will be extremely close together physically” in the vector space, said Guillaume Lample, one of the system s designers. “If you take words like Madrid, London, Paris, which are European capital cities, it s the same idea.” These language maps can then be linked to one another using algorithms — at first roughly, but eventually becoming more refined, until entire phrases can be matched without too many errors. Lample said results are already promising. For the language pair of English-Romanian, Facebook s current machine translation system is “equal or maybe a bit worse” than the word vector system, said Lample. But for the rarer language pair of English-Urdu, where Facebook s traditional system doesn t have many bilingual texts to reference, the word vector system is already superior, he said. But could the method allow translation from, say, Basque into the language of an Amazonian tribe? In theory, yes, said Lample, but in practice a large body of written texts are needed to map the language, something lacking in Amazonian tribal languages. “If you have just tens of thousands of phrases, it won t work. You need several hundreds of thousands,” he said. – Holy Grail – Experts at France s CNRS national scientific centre said the approach Lample has taken for Facebook could produce useful results, even if it doesn t result in perfect translations. Thierry Poibeau of CNRS s Lattice laboratory, which also does research into machine translation, called the word vector approach “a conceptual revolution”. He said “translating without parallel data” — dictionaries or versions of the same documents in both languages — “is something of the Holy Grail” of machine translation. “But the question is what level of performance can be expected” from the word vector method, said Poibeau. The method “can give an idea of the original text” but the capability for a good translation every time remains unproven. Francois Yvon, a researcher at CNRS s Computer Science Laboratory for Mechanics and Engineering Sciences, said “the linking of languages is much more difficult” when they are far removed from one another. “The manner of denoting concepts in Chinese is completely different from French,” he added. However even imperfect translations can be useful, said Yvon, and could prove sufficient to track hate speech, a major priority for Facebook.

The trio of US-based John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham from Britain and Akira Yoshino of Japan were jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their contribution "to the development of lithium-ion batteries," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm announced on Wednesday. Goran Hansson, secretary-general of the Academy, said the prize was about "a rechargeable world." "Lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized our lives and are used in everything from mobile phones to laptops and electric vehicles," the Academy wrote on Twitter.

Mondia, a leading private mobile technology company, announced the opening of their new tech hub in Cairo. The newly created facility will host the company s technical developers and designers, creating state of the art technologies, innovative products and solutions servicing various markets across Europe, Middle East and Africa. The modern first-of-its-kind facility in New Cairo will set a new standard in the software industry and will be home to more than one hundred technical team members. The office design will allow for a team to function in squads a proven working concept, aiding extensive collaboration and promoting communication which in turn drive innovation. The premises will include creative space such as a gamers cave , focus rooms, playful seating areas and a café type street kitchen.

Nearly six years after the arrival of PlayStation 4, Sony confirmed on Tuesday its next console will launch in 2020 for the holiday season. In a blog post, the company announced PlayStation 5 will feature a redesigned controller. It will include haptic feedback and improved tactile sensations, such as rumbling and shaking, so that users can better feel what s going on within a game. "With haptics, you truly feel a broader range of feedback, so crashing into a wall in a race car feels much different than making a tackle on the football field. You can even get a sense for a variety of textures when running through fields of grass or plodding through mud," Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, wrote in the post. "One of our goals with the next generation is to deepen the feeling of immersion when you play games." The company declined to share further details, including how much the PlayStation 5 will cost. In April, Sony teased its fifth-generation console. The PlayStation 5 is expected to have faster load speeds, better graphics and improved audio. It will compete against Microsoft s Project Scarlett, its next-gen Xbox console, which will also launch for the 2020 holiday shopping season. Earlier this month, Sony slashed prices on its cloud gaming service, PlayStation Now, as Google gears up for a November release of its rival offering, Stadia.

Vodafone is testing technology in Europe that could break the stranglehold on telecom equipment enjoyed by Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei. The world s second largest mobile network provider said Monday that it would test Open Radio Access Networks (OpenRAN) in Britain, part of an effort to increase the number of companies that sell telecom network equipment. OpenRAN, developed within industry association Telecom Infra Project (TIP), standardizes the design and functionality of the infrastructure, masts and antennae used by mobile network operators. The technology could encourage upstarts to challenge incumbents Ericsson (ERIC), Nokia (NOK) and Huawei, and result in more choice for the likes of Verizon (VZ), CNN parent company AT&T (T) and Vodafone when it comes to telecoms gear. "The global supply of telecom network equipment has become concentrated in a small handful of companies," Vodafone (VOD) said in a statement, adding that more more suppliers would improve flexibility and innovation. An open alternative The number of equipment suppliers has dwindled in recent decades, leaving operators beholden to a small number of very large vendors. OpenRAN could change this over time, introducing more competition and driving down prices for telecom companies, which are facing the roll out of costly 5G technology. By standardizing hardware, the platform should allow new vendors to compete on software. The new technology, which Vodafone has also deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Mozambique, will provide 2G, 3G and 4G services for now, "with 5G possible over OpenRAN in the future," Vodafone said. One of the major equipment suppliers, China s Huawei, is the target of a US campaign that seeks to discourage mobile network operators from using its equipment on national security grounds. Huawei denies that its products pose a risk, but some countries have sought to limit use of its equipment and others are looking into the issue. The conflict has meant tough choices for mobile operators building 5G networks. Still, OpenRAN represents a tiny share of the telecoms equipment market and this is unlikely to change considerably in the near future, said Julian Bright, a senior analyst at Ovum. "It s hard to see 5G as an inflection point where suddenly OpenRAN is going to gain significant market share," he told CNN Business. Telecom operators are already embarking on vendor selections for 5G and the tendency is to procure the bulk of their 5G equipment supply from existing suppliers, Bright said. But Paul Triolo, global technology policy director at Eurasia Group, said that it would take a decade to roll 5G out on a standalone basis, by which time OpenRAN may be positioned to play a bigger role. Vodafone s goal Vodafone is seeking to "actively expand" its vendor ecosystem, CEO Nick Read said in a statement. The company has already started working with a number of new vendors supplying OpenRAN technology, including US companies Parallel Wireless and Mavenir, and UK-based Lime Microsystems. "OpenRAN improves the network economics enabling us to reach more people in rural communities and that supports our goal to build digital societies in which no-one is left behind," Read said. More than 100 possible locations across the United Kingdom had been identified for OpenRAN trials, a Vodafone spokesperson told CNN Business. This list would be narrowed further to 55. By testing the technology in a market as big as the United Kingdom, Vodafone could help upstarts to attract financing and eventually scale to rival existing vendors, said Usman Ghazi, an analyst at Berenberg. The UK trials are Vodafone s first in a developed market.

Facebook announced on Thursday the removal of hundreds of fake Facebook accounts, pages and groups split into two lists. The first list included accounts originating from several countries including Egypt and the second included accounts originating in Egypt. The first list consisted of 211 accounts, 107 pages, and 49 groups on Facebook and 87 accounts on Instagram removed for engaging in “inauthentic coordinated behavior” originating from the UAE, Egypt and Nigeria. “The people behind this network used fake accounts – some of which had already been disabled by our automated systems — to run Pages, post in Groups, disseminate their content and artificially increase engagement. They managed Pages — some of which changed names over time — sharing local news in targeted countries and promoting content about UAE,” the company said in a statement posted on its official website. “The Page admins and account owners primarily posted videos, photos and web links related to local events and issues in a particular country, and some content on topics including elections and candidates; UAE s activity in Yemen; the first Emirati astronaut; criticism of Qatar, Turkey, and Iran; the Iran nuclear deal, and criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood,” it added. Facebook added that these people tried to hide their identities, but Facebook investigations found links between the removed accounts and three marketing companies, Charles Communications in UAE, MintReach in Nigeria and Flexell in Egypt. A second list marked the removal of 163 accounts, 51 pages, 33 groups and four accounts on Instagram in Egypt engaged in “inauthentic coordinated behavior” and usually focused on disseminating political content supporting the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and criticizing Qatar, Iran, Turkey and southern separatists in Yemen. The company said it found links between the accounts and Egypt s El Fagr newspaper.

Microsoft has unveiled two folding devices, with dual touch screens, which it says will create a new category in mobile computing. But, unlike attempts from its rivals, the firm has not adopted a bendable screen - nor has it decided to include a high-end camera system on the products. Panos Panay, Microsoft s chief product officer, gave the BBC a demonstration of the devices ahead of their public unveiling in New York on Wednesday. "We want people to see the direction we re taking with productivity,” he said, adding that the products will be released in a year s time. “This is the earliest we ve ever shown [a prototype] Surface. We re going to get developer units out pretty soon.” One industry watcher said it was no surprise that Microsoft had shied away from trying to incorporate an all-in-one foldable screen, despite the fact that products using the technology had already gone on sale. "Given the issues Samsung had with the initial version of the Galaxy Fold and the wider challenges around the fragility of flexible displays, it makes sense that device makers are experimenting with alternative designs," commented Ben Wood from the consultancy CCS Insight. As part of Wednesday s launch, Microsoft also announced several updates to the Surface laptop range due to be released later this year, and open to pre-orders today. The Surface Neo consists of two screens which open up to a 13in display with a split in the middle, and runs Windows 10X, a variation of the operating system designed to run on dual-screen devices. The Surface Duo - a smartphone - opens to 8.3in, also with a split, and runs Android, Google s mobile operating system. In the BBC s hands-on with the device, it experienced several glitches - including an unresponsive touchscreen, and sudden powering down. Mr Panay stressed the devices were still in the early stages of development. Mr Panay would not say how much the devices would cost, nor would he be drawn on whether his engineers had considered a flexible screen that would run across the split. Instead, he said his preference was for the products to incorporate a hinge design that can bend both ways. "The overload is much less," Mr Panay told the BBC. "I m staying in context on a web browser on one side, and I m looking at my mail on the other. Or, I have a calendar on one side, and I have my mail on the other. "It s structured in a way that you re actually optimising and feeling good about being productive.” The Surface Neo can be positioned like a typical laptop, with an additional keyboard placed over the lower screen. In this configuration, the remainder of the screen acts as an extension to the keyboard, similar to - but larger than - Apple s Touch Bar. The smaller device, Surface Duo, will be seen as a competitor to Samsung s Galaxy Fold. Unlike Microsoft s effort, Samsung has managed to create a bendable screen made from plastic rather than glass. However, the product was delayed after reports of extreme unreliability. Despite adding reinforcements, the firm still recommends a “light touch” when using the $2,000 device. Samsung s device features six cameras, including a telephoto and wide angle lens. Surface Neo and Duo, however, have just one front-facing camera, the specifications of which Microsoft was not yet willing to share. This isn t Microsoft s first attempt at a “booklet” computer. In 2009, details leaked about a dual-screen product named Courier - but it was shelved less than a year later. Other projects, such as the Codex, never graduated beyond the research stage. Since then, however, Microsoft has enjoyed considerable hardware success. Its Surface line first launched in 2012 to a mixed reaction, but has in time become a significant revenue stream for the firm. In the past fiscal year (ending in June 2019), the Surface range accounted for $5.7bn of Microsoft s total revenues, up 40% on the previous year. The firm has also followed Amazon and Apple in releasing wireless in-ear headphones, called Surface Earbuds. Kait Schoeck, senior industrial designer at Microsoft, said her team 3D-printed “more than a thousand” different shapes and sizes of the ear bud in an attempt to prevent the device falling out - a common complaint with other brands of wireless headphones. “We scanned thousands of ears,” Ms Schoeck said. "But we also took the approach of just trying it on. It really comes down to making the prototype and putting it in people s ears. So hundreds and hundreds of people would come through this lab, try it on, give us feedback, and then we go through another iteration." While being worn, Surface Earbuds can be used as a control device, such as tapping your ear to move on a Powerpoint slide, Microsoft said. However, priced at $249, the product is considerably more expensive than Amazon s Echo buds ($130) and Apple s latest AirPods ($159/$199).

In a collaboration between the Ministry of Environmental Affairs and the Egyptian company Environ Adapt, the first waste collection app in Egypt, called DAWAR (recycle), launched in Cairo to facilitate garbage tracking across governorates, according to a statement issued by Minister of Environmental Affairs Yasmine Fouad on Sunday, September 29 on the sidelines of the Green Economy and Sustainable Development Conference. The application is designed to help citizens report waste placed in streets by facilitating communication between concerned entities, including the Waste Management Authority, relevant district offices, and the environmental ministry so that they can jointly collect the garbage. Citizens who report garbage in a particular location will soon after receive a photo on their mobile phones of the same place following the removal of the garbage, according to Yasmine Fouad, who spoke at a press conference that took place to celebrate the new application. The application project is part of a newly announced 2019/2020 waste management plan by the Ministry of Environmental Affairs. The plan also aims to found waste recycling factories. The minister further noted that the application has been beta-tested in districts of Maadi and Tora to ensure their capacity for success. All the required preparations have been carried out, and the application is ready to be implemented in other governorates. The environmental affairs ministry signed a protocol with Environ Adapt, the leading mapping applications and monitoring systems company, to implement a waste management system set to serve Cairo, Giza, Alexandria, Qena, Assiut, Gharbiya and Kafr al-Sheikh. Environ Adapt, the company behind DAWAR, focuses its services on providing comprehensive graphical and textual data that enables users to obtain qualitative and quantitative information. The company has thrived in the waste management industry. During the press conference, Fouad highlighted the current efforts of the Ministry of Environmental Affairs to digitize Egypt s environmental management infrastructure, stating that all the requisite equipment is available to secure the success of these efforts. She also underscored the importance of mutual work between the government and the private sector while taking this major step. The government s environmental system aims to sustain the recycling process on higher levels and to fight diverse types of the threatening pollution, according to Fouad s comments. These actions, facilitated through technology, will return Egyptians streets to the way they looked in past decades, she added. Egypt generates nearly 80 million tons of solid waste annually, according to a governmental report. The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) revealed on August 29 figures about waste recycling in Egypt during the year 2017 in a report detailing statistics from the Egyptian governorates with the top five highest recycling rates. Gharbiya governorate came in first place with 97.9 percent, and Beheira came in second place with 97.5 percent. The three governorates Kafr al-Sheikh (92.3 percent), Qalyubiya (72.3 percent) and Daqahlia (0.5 percent) occupied the following three rankings. In May, Egypt s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered concerned officials to design a new solid waste management system for overpopulated areas to enhance citizens lives on various levels, a prior statement by the presidential spokesperson said. Solutions for two major issues faced by Egyptian society, water and air pollution, are included in the new system s strategic plan, according to the same official statement.

The new archaeological season has begun, showing promise in Luxor, the capital of world tourism. There are currently five archaeological missions, including three Egyptian missions, one Spanish, and one American conducting excavations there. Several new mission and projects have been approved for the new season. Luxor is known for its rich tombs and pharaonic temples, which all seem like they will see a strong tourist season. Last season witnessed many discoveries and restorations of Pharaonic tombs, palaces, and statues of Pharaonic kings in several areas. Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa al-Waziry said in a press statement on Monday that the Standing Committee of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities approved the work projects of some 240 foreign archaeological missions at various archaeological sites for the new archaeological season. The work of these foreign missions was approved alongside the work of 40 Egyptian archaeological missions. He added that an archaeological mission headed by the well-known Egyptologist Zahi Hawass started operating in the western valley, known as the Valley of Monkeys. The mission is also completing work in the Valley of the Kings, which includes dozens of tombs of the kings of ancient Egypt, he added, explaining that the foreign archaeological missions that work in Egypt rely on Egyptian archaeologists, restorers and workers in 90 percent of their operations. Minister of Antiquities Khaled al-Anani is exerting huge efforts in order to enable Egyptian archaeologists to participate in excavations, said Waziry, pointing out that Egyptian missions rose from five to 40 in the current season, which started a few days ago. The Ministry of Antiquities was able to provide the necessary funding for the work of these Egyptian missions through a number of successful exhibitions in foreign countries, the latest of which was the exhibition of the treasures of the golden pharaoh Tutankhamun in the French capital Paris. Waziry referred to his presidencies of the Egyptian archaeological mission operating in Zeraa Aboul Naga and the Egyptian archaeological mission in the archaeological area of Assasif. A Spanish archaeological mission is working in the Temple of King Tuthmosis III, and another American archaeological mission is working in the tomb of Prince Amon Mees and cemetery number 63 in the Valley of the Kings.

While the US banned Huawei for alleged espionage and asked its allies to do the same, Moscow has rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese tech company, letting it develop 5G networks in Russia. Analysts say the move is as much a show of solidarity with Beijing against the US as it is a drive to bring ultra high-speed internet to Russian tech users. This month, Huawei opened its first 5G test zone in Moscow in partnership Russian operator MTS, with a view to rolling out the service to the rest of the capital. Moscow authorities say the network will become part of the city s normal infrastructure within the next few years. A pioneer in telecoms networks compared to many Western countries, Russia plans to deploy 5G in all of its main cities by 2024. When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Russia in June — at the height of Washington s conflict with Huawei — Russia s main operator MTS signed a contract with the Chinese company. We live well in Russia At the inauguration of the 5G zone in Moscow, the CEO of Russia s branch of Huawei Zhao Lei praised the company s activities in the country. “We have been working in Russia for 22 years. Thanks to our partners, we live well here,” he said. He added that Huawei, considered a world leader in 5G technology, plans to “lead in the development of 6G” in the future. Huawei is also the world s second-largest smartphone company. It did not respond to AFP s interview requests. A source in Russia s 5G research community said Huawei is the biggest investor in the development of mobile technologies in Russia, with “the largest research laboratory of all operators” in Moscow. According to the Vedomosti business daily, Huawei currently employs 400 people in Moscow and 150 in Saint Petersburg in mobile research and development. It aims to employ 500 more people by the end of 2019 and 1,000 more over five years. Experts said Russia s welcome of Huawei does not mean the Chinese company is alone in the race for developing 5G in Russia. “Russian operators are all collaborating with multiple 5G equipment vendors, Huawei included. We do not see any clear 5G leaders in the network deployment in Russia,” said Michela Landoni, an analyst at Fitch Solutions. She said operators prefer this approach to avoid being “reliant on one specific vendor” and to protect themselves against cyber threats. The Tele2 operator was the first to launch 5G in Russia with Sweden s Ericsson in August, on Moscow s main Tverskaya street. Economic front In the midst of a trade war and technological rivalry with China, the US has threatened to cut Huawei s access to the US components and services it needs, such as the Android operating system that the company uses on its phones. Russia then promptly stepped in to offer its Aurora operating system to the Chinese group. If Android remains Huawei s preferred choice, Landoni said Aurora could be a “short-term solution” for the group. According to the analyst, Aurora could become a “stepping stone” in the development for Huawei s own OS. According to Sylvain Chevallier, a partner at the technology consulting firm BearingPoint, the aim is “to create an economic front against the US.” Russia and China, he said, are trying to break away from the US monopoly over smartphone operating systems. As for the espionage risks Washington has warned of, Russia is hardly worried. While using foreign mobile equipment risks foreign government accessing data, for Russia there is “no big difference” if it is Huawei, Ericsson or another company, said Evgeny Khorov, the head of the Wireless Network Lab at Russia s Academy of Sciences. “Many people use Android phones whose system is designed by Google. Does this mean that Google has access to all the data? Yes, of course,” he said. “So what s the difference between Huawei and Google in this case?”

If there s one thing technology companies learned during the smartphone boom, it s that getting people locked in early is the difference between success and failure. Customers are simply unwilling, at least in any significant number, to leave whatever ecosystem they ve invested in - whether it s Apple s iOS or Google s Android. And so when there s a chance to break ground on a new ecosystem, a fresh opportunity to get people locked in for years to come, you can expect a scramble. For “voice”, widely considered the next big platform in tech, the scramble is on, and it s being seen most aggressively in one distinct area: your face. It s an area with limited real estate - you are likely to have just two ears, and two eyes - and a fraught history of botched attempts at game-changing tech. "To date, the most commonly accepted place to wear technology has been the wrist and Apple s success with its Watch reflects this,” said Ben Wood, from CCS Insight. “But as Amazon and a number of other players start to get more serious about ear buds and smart glasses, there is growing evidence that the battle for the face has begun.” Let s begin with the ears. Apple has established an early lead here, built on past glory: the iPhone. Its AirPods, released in 2016, currently dominate the category with a 53% share of the 27 million “hearables" sold globally from April-June this year, according to data gathered by Counterpoint Research. "Apple will keep leading the market for the time being thanks to its loyal base of hardware users and its sticky ecosystem of devices and software,” said Counterpoint Research senior analyst Liz Lee. "It will also release new ear buds with a major overhaul to the design expected in late 2020 and refresh the market again. We expect that Apple s share will be around 40%-50% this year and a bit lower next year, but still, it will be the biggest player." Amazon Alexa gets Samuel L Jackson s voice Facebook buys mind-reading wristband firm Apple s iPhone 11 Pro triggering fear of holes While AirPods appear to be simply a wireless version of the headphones Apple has sold for a decade now, the firm considers them to be something far more strategic: its best opportunity to get consumers interacting with devices using voice. They do little to address Apple s main problem right now, which is that once people get home, they re more likely - if they have a smart speaker - to talk to an assistant from Amazon or Google than they are to Siri. Amazon s problem is the other way round. The success of its Alexa assistant has it leading the smart-speaker market in our homes, according to Canalys research, but the firm s disastrous attempt to break into smartphones means Alexa has mostly been stuck indoors. On Wednesday, Amazon took significant steps it hopes will change that with the announcement of Echo Buds, wireless ear buds with Alexa built in - the most straightforward way yet to take Alexa out of the home. The device is cheaper than AirPods - $129 v $199 - and has the added selling point of including noise cancellation, something AirPods lack. "It is apparent that access to Alexa could be more appealing for some people than access to Siri, as Alexa can be used to order goods from Amazon directly and Amazon s ecosystem is more open than Apple s,” said Ms Lee. "Amazon could also take aggressive markdowns including offering its new gadget in Prime deals and bundles for cheap during the Black Friday sales to increase market share.” More in-ear players will soon emerge. Next week, Microsoft is expected to announce its own smart wireless ear buds too. And Google, with its own assistant and a range of voice-powered software (such as auto language translation), could offer another strong device, improving on the Pixel Buds that were launched in 2017. The company is holding its hardware launch event on 11 October. The eyes have it Amazon is also hoping to turn heads - though not too quickly - with Echo Frames. These are glasses with Alexa relatively discreetly built into the titanium frames. Paired to a smartphone, they vibrate when a notification is received and, like the Echo Pods, allow for voice commands to be given to Alexa via two microphones. It s being seen as a modest first step en route to the real goal: smart glasses containing augmented reality (AR), digitally created imagery laid over the real world. Just as Amazon was talking about Echo Frames at its HQ in Seattle, Facebook was busy sharing its own aspirations for AR at its Oculus Connect developers conference in San Jose. Andrew Bosworth, Facebook s head of virtual reality and AR, said the firm was building AR glasses. A demonstration video showed how pop-ups could appear in your vision, alerting you to movie times or directions. This product isn t imminent - Facebook has a lot of work to do to make the tech a reality. And the firm is currently lacking a full-featured voice assistant of its own (though it has been working on one as part of its Portal video chat range). There are credible rumours that Apple is preparing to release its own AR wearable device too. According to Wired, those who keep a close eye on the code contained in Apple s operating system, iOS, noticed that deep inside recent updates was code that looked almost certain to be related to some kind of future AR device. Taiwanese analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted an Apple AR device could be ready as early as the middle of next year. Looking foolish Getting these devices to work well is just one hurdle to overcome, however. There are also the issues of style and trust. You ll remember Google Glass, released in 2013, that as well as suffering from technological shortcomings was also held back by the fact it made the wearer look rather foolish (no offence, Rory). Newer technologies are bulky and cumbersome. Microsoft s Hololens and Magic Leap s goggles sit heavy on either the head or hip. And these technologies make other people uncomfortable. Famously, one woman was attacked for wearing Google Glass in a San Francisco bar. AR glasses will need to use outward-facing cameras to detect objects around them, and it is likely that tech firms will consider video recording, and calling, to be a selling point. Ear buds, similarly, will need to capture some amount of audio from the world around them in order to work. The wearer might be fine with that, yes, but what of those around them who may not want to be captured and analysed by companies that have already lost our confidence? That s what makes this latest tech race different. Anyone buying these devices will spend time considering not just which company has the best technology, but also the best intentions.

Eighty-three hotels with about 22,000 rooms so far have received the Green Star Hotel Certificate all over Egypt, a source with the Ministry of Tourism said. The source added that about three other hotels will get the certificate soon. Egypt is adopting the sustainable development concepts approved by the UN through a structural reform program, and is prioritizing the development of eco-friendly tourism by encouraging hotels and tourist facilities to preserve the environment and use clean energy, the source said. The Ministry of Tourism is cooperating with the Chamber of Tourism Establishments to increase the number of eco-friendly hotels, and to set up standards for hotel clusters in the so-called “green destinations” to meet demand for this type of tourism and enhance its presence in Egypt. Tamer al-Shaer, member of the Chamber of Hotel Establishments, said that the green certificate hotels are distributed in the areas of Cairo, Ain Sokhna, Sharm el-Sheikh, Taba, Hurghada and Marsa Alam. He added that the certificate aims to support the use of solar energy technologies, energy conservation in hotel facilities and linking renewable energy and sustainable development, utilizing it for the development of the tourism sector. Shaer pointed out that tourists coming from Europe specifically, one of the most important markets for Egypt, favor green tourism hotels. He stressed that Egypt must keep pace with the latest developments in the sector globally. The Green Star Hotel Certificate for tourist accommodation businesses is awarded to tourist accommodations in Egypt for their commitment to environmentally friendly management and social responsibility. It was developed as a public-private project between key stakeholders from the German and Egyptian tourism markets. The Vice President of Marsa Alam Investors Association, Tarek Shalaby, explained that the government must provide the required materials to produce solar energy at low prices or allow investors to import it with a customs exemption. He said that reliance on clean energy concerns the entire country, and therefore the state should encourage investors to enter the solar energy field.

Google is not required to apply an EU “right to be forgotten” to its search engine domains outside Europe, the EU s top court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision. The European Court of Justice handed victory to Google in the case, seen as crucial in determining whether EU online regulation should apply beyond Europe s borders or not. The US internet giant had argued that the removal of search results required under EU law should not extend to its google.com domain or its other non-EU sites. The court ruled that, while a search engine operator such as Google must carry out “de-referencing” of links as demanded by a regulator or court in an EU state to all European versions of its sites, that “right to be forgotten” did not need to go further. “There is no obligation under EU law” for search engine operators such as Google “to carry out such a de-referencing on all the versions of its search engine,” the court said. But it did stress that de-referencing on EU sites must include measures to “seriously discourage” a European internet user being able to get around the “right to be forgotten” by accessing unrestricted results from a search engine on a non-EU domain. That demands “geo-blocking”, which Google says it already uses effectively in Europe. Savvy internet users, however, can get around that measure with a VPN that masks the user s location, or by going to some non-Google search engines. Google hails win The EU court case, seen as pitting individuals rights to privacy online against freedom of information, stemmed from a legal battle waged by France since 2014 to have Google apply the “right to be forgotten” to all its search domains. If France had won, it could have deepened a rift between Europe and the United States, which is home to most of the internet s behemoths and whose President Donald Trump has railed against what he sees as EU meddling in US business. In the end, though, the court found that EU law on the issue did not seek to have the “right to be forgotten” extend beyond its borders. Google hailed Tuesday s decision by the EU court. “It s good to see that the court agreed with our arguments,” its lawyer, Peter Fleischer, said in a statement, adding that Google has worked “to strike a sensible balance between people s rights of access to information and privacy”. The US company and other stakeholders had warned that authoritarian countries outside Europe could abuse global de-referencing requests to cover up rights violations. “It s a balanced decision. You can t impose extraterritorial effects when it comes to de-referencing a person,” said Yann Padova, a data privacy lawyer with the Baker McKenzie firm in Paris who was not involved in arguing the case. “What would we say if China started demanding de-referencing of content accessible to French users?” he asked. Closely watched case Google s position was bolstered in January by a non-binding opinion from the EU court s top legal advisor, advocate general Maciej Szpunar, who recommended judges “should limit the scope of the de-referencing that search engine operators are required to carry out, to the EU”. The case had been closely watched, especially as Europe has also already emerged as a global rule-setter in terms of data protection on the internet. A 2016 General Data Protection Regulation it enacted that covers all EU citizens and residents has forced many sites and companies around the globe to comply with its measures. In terms of the “right to be forgotten” legal fight, France s data regulator, the Commission Nationale de l Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL), had argued that, for de-referencing to be effective, it must apply to all domains wherever they are. In 2016, CNIL fined Google 100,000 euros ($110,000) for non-compliance. Google appealed to France s highest court, which in turn referred to the European Court of Justice, ending up with Tuesday s ruling.

Set in 2019, cult 80s movie “Blade Runner” envisaged a neon-stained landscape of bionic “replicants” genetically engineered to look just like humans. So far that has failed to materialize, but at a secretive research institute in western Japan, wild-haired roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro is fine-tuning technology that could blur the line between man and machine. Highly intelligent, self-aware and helpful around the house — the robots of the future could look and act just like humans and even become their friends, Ishiguro and his team predict. “I don t know when a Blade Runner future will happen, but I believe it will,” the Osaka University professor told AFP. “Every year we re developing new technology — like deep learning, which has improved the performance of pattern recognition,” he added. “Now we re focusing on intention and desire, and if we implement them into robots whether they become more human-like.” Robots are already widely used in Japan — from cooking noodles to helping patients with physiotherapy. Marketed as the world s first “cyborg-type” robot, HAL (hybrid assistive limb) — developed by Tsukuba University and Japanese company Cyberdyne — is helping people in wheelchairs walk again using sensors connected to the unit s control system. Scientists believe service robots will one day help us with household chores, from taking out the garbage to making the perfect slice of toast. Stockbrokers in Japan and around the world are already deploying AI bots to forecast stock market trends and science fiction s rapid advance towards science fact owes much to the likes of Ishiguro. He previously created an android copy of himself — using complex moving parts, electronics, silicone skin and his own hair — that he sends on business trips in his place. Wake up, time to die But Ishiguro believes recent breakthroughs in robotics and artificial intelligence will accelerate the synthesis of man and machine. “As a scientist, I hope to develop self-conscious robots like you see in Blade Runner to help me understand what it is to be human,” he said. “That s my motivation.” The point at which that line between humans and machines converges has long been a source of anxiety for some, as depicted in popular culture. In “Blade Runner”, Harrison Ford plays a police officer who tracks down and kills replicants that have escaped and are living among the population in Los Angeles. The “Terminator” series starring Arnold Schwarzenegger centers on a self-aware computer network which initiates a nuclear holocaust and, through autonomous military machines, wages war against human survivors. “I can t understand why Hollywood wants to destroy robots,” shrugged Ishiguro, who in 2007 was named one of the top 100 living geniuses by global consultants firm Synectics. “Look at Japanese cartoons and animations — robots are always friendly. We have a totally different cultural background,” noted the professor. It s not just Hollywood that has concerns over AI. Tesla s Elon Musk has called for a global ban on killer robots, warning technological advances could revolutionize warfare and create new “weapons of terror” that target innocent people. But Ishiguro insists there is no inherent danger in machines becoming self-aware or surpassing human intelligence. “We don t need to fear AI or robots, the risk is controllable,” he said. “My basic idea is that there is no difference between humans and robots.” Uncanny valley The ultimate goal, according to Ishiguro s colleague Takashi Minato, is “to bring robots into society as human companions — it s possible for robots to become our friends.” But will they look like us, as Ishiguro believes, and how comfortable will we feel surrounded by autonomous humanoids? Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori suggested in 1970 that the more robots resemble people, the creepier we find them — a phenomenon he called the “uncanny valley”. Ishiguro s first attempt at creating an android clone was based on his daughter and its “jerky movements” reduced her to tears. He has since perfected the template, including a creation he claimed was the world s first news-reading android and a robot priest at a Kyoto temple unveiled earlier this year. Minato shares his boss s visionary ideas. “Hopefully remote-control technology will develop to allow our alter egos to lead regular lives,” he said. “Like in the movie Surrogates — that would make life more convenient,” he added, referencing the sci-fi Bruce Willis hit in which people cocooned at home experience lives through robotic avatars. While he won t put a date on a real-life “Blade Runner” future, Ishiguro claims the rise of the machines has already begun. “Already computers are more powerful than humans in some cases,” he said. “Technology is just another means of evolution. We are changing the definition of what it is to be human.”