Legal battle over shot-down drone

Last updated 2 hours ago

Drones are becoming popular hi-tech toys for many people

A US court has found in favour of a drone owner who sued a man who shot his hexacopter out of the sky.

The drone, built and flown by Eric Joe, was shot down by Brett McBay in late November, 2014.

Mr McBay claimed the drone was over his property and said he believed it was being used to spy on him.

Mr Joe asked Mr McBay to pay for repairs to the home-built drone and, when he refused, started legal action in California's small claims court.

In legal papers to support his claim, Mr Joe included GPS data which, he said, showed that the machine was hovering over a walnut orchard owned by his parents, not the property of their neighbour Mr McBay, when it was brought down.

In its judgement, the California court found that Mr McBay "acted unreasonably" in shooting the craft whether it was over his property or not, revealed a story about the incident in Ars Technica.

The court awarded Mr Joe $850 (£540) damages but Mr McBay has yet to pay up. If the cash was not handed over by the end of June, Mr Joe said he would take further legal action to get the money.

Mr McBay has not responded to requests for comment from the BBC or other media organisations.

Mr Joe's drone was not the first to be be shot down. There have been several other cases in the US of people shooting drones even though the Federal Aviation Agency has explicitly stated that it is illegal to do so.

BBC © 2015

Sat firm eyes huge rocket campaign

Last updated Jun 25, 2015, 4:22 AM PST

By Jonathan Amos

BBC Science Correspondent

The "European version" of the Russian Soyuz rocket launches from French Guiana

The biggest commercial rocket campaign in history has been announced by OneWeb.

The British Channel Islands-registered company has acquired more than 60 launchers to help put up its proposed satellite broadband network.

OneWeb envisages placing 648 spacecraft in orbit to take affordable internet connectivity to every part of the globe.

The firm used a London press conference to detail its plans.

This included introducing all of the key partners in the endeavour.

Along with European aerospace giant Airbus, which was announced last week as the satellite manufacturer, OneWeb presented Bharti Enterprises, Coca Cola, Group Salinas, Hughes Network Systems, and Intelsat.

The forthcoming Ariane 6 rocket would be used at a later stage to replenish the satellite fleet

Chip-designer Qualcomm and the Virgin Group already had seats on the board.

"We have put together an incredible team and we have an ability to execute on our model," said OneWeb CEO Greg Wyler. "We have funding, we have spectrum, chip technology, satellite manufacturing, launchers, and then markets - the broad pieces of the puzzle to build a system of this size."

Virgin's Sir Richard Branson said that he would be making available at least 39 of his LauncherOne rockets to assist with the deployment of the satellite constellation.

This vehicle, which is based on Virgin Galactic's space tourism system, has not actually had its debut flight yet, and when it does enter service will probably only launch between one and three satellites at a time. That makes the involvement of the long-established Arianespace all the more important. It is the commercial operator of the Soyuz launcher.

OneWeb says it has a firm acquisition order for 21 of these Russian-made rockets. The vehicles would orbit the satellites in large batches of about 36. At some point, Arianespace may even make available its Ariane rocket. In publicity material released on Thursday, an artist's impression depicted the forthcoming Ariane 6 rocket painted in the OneWeb livery.

"The special characteristic we'll bring is in the replenishment role," said Virgin Galactic's CEO, George Whitesides. "And if there is a problem with a particular satellite, we can help fix that. I think it's a very smart strategy, and what I think people should get is that it is a very complementary strategy between the different launch vehicles."

Putting up the OneWeb constellation will be an immense financial and technical challenge

It is difficult to overstate the challenge of the OneWeb proposition.

Its constellation would be 10 times the size of the largest commercial satcom network currently in the sky.

To make the project financially manageable, it will need not only some sizeable loans but also considerable direct investment from its partners, and part of Thursday's event was to announce that OneWeb had raised $500m of funding from those supporting companies.

One aspect of key interest is the price of each individual 150-kilo satellite. The aim is to get the unit cost to half a million dollars or less - something unheard of in the industry.

"Yes, the cost per satellite will be about half a million, which is really tremendous for company that normally makes satellites for a hundred million and upwards," said Airbus CEO Tom Enders. "We do it by being ingenious and creative."

OneWeb expects to place the spacecraft in 20 orbital planes at an altitude of about 1,200km. They would connect to small user terminals on the ground.

These terminals would then act as hubs, linking phones and computers. The low altitude of the constellation should mitigate the delay, or latency, that users experience as they send and receive data over the system.

Mr Wyler has history in this business. He started the O3B satellite network, which is doing something very similar, but with just 12 mid-orbiting spacecraft.

The "O3B" is a reference to "Other Three Billion" - an estimate of the numbers of people around the world who have little or no broadband access.

The rollout of the new constellation is not expected to begin until 2017 at the earliest.

Because OneWeb is British-based, the UK, as the "launching state", carries certain liabilities, and that means the UK Space Agency is going to be very busy in a licensing capacity, ensuring the project's activities meet the highest standards. One of these is an insistence that old satellites are disposed of in accordance with international space debris guidelines.

"The project demonstrates the importance of satellites in space to the communications infrastructure, and it's fantastic that there is great UK interest and potentially UK involvement," UKSA CEO Dr David Parker told BBC News.

"There are enormous technical challenges for this project, but they've obviously got an interesting team to try and solve them."

Mr Wyler said he would be announcing significant investments in Britain connected with the project in due course.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

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Earth 'entering new extinction phase' - US study

• 20 June 2015
 
• From the section Science & Environment
 
• 937comments

Climate change and deforestation are among the reasons we may be facing an extinction event

The Earth has entered a new period of extinction, a study by three US universities has concluded, and humans could be among the first casualties.

The report, led by the universities of Stanford, Princeton and Berkeley, said vertebrates were disappearing at a rate 114 times faster than normal.

The findings echo those in a report published by Duke University last year.

One of the new study's authors said: "We are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event."

The last such event was 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs were wiped out, in all likelihood by a large meteor hitting Earth.

"If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on," said the lead author, Gerardo Ceballos.

Pollination by bees could disappear within three generations, the report warns

The scientists looked at historic rates of extinction for vertebrates - animals with backbones - by assessing fossil records.

They found that the current extinction rate was more than 100 times higher than in periods when Earth was not going through a mass extinction event.

Since 1900, the report says, more than 400 more vertebrates had disappeared.

Such a loss would normally be seen over a period of up to 10,000 years, the scientists say.

The study - published in the Science Advances journal - cites causes such as climate change, pollution and deforestation.

Given the knock-on effect of ecosystems being destroyed, the report says benefits such as pollination by bees could be lost within three human generations.

Extinction may be more gradual than when the dinosaurs died, the report says

Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich said: "There are examples of species all over the world that are essentially the walking dead.

"We are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on."

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says at least 50 animals move closer to extinction every year.

Around 41% of all amphibians and 25% of mammals are threatened with extinction, it says.

Most at risk: the lemur

According to the IUCN, the lemur faces a real struggle to avoid extinction in the wild in the coming years.

The group says that 94% of all lemurs are under threat, with more than a fifth of all lemur species classed as "critically endangered".

As well as seeing their habitat in Madagascar destroyed by illegal logging, lemurs are also regularly hunted for their meat, the IUCN says.

What were the five mass extinction events?

Last year, a report by Stuart Pimm, a biologist and extinction expert at Duke University in North Carolina, also warned mankind was entering a sixth mass extinction event.

But Mr Pimm's report said the current rate of extinction was more than 1,000 times faster than in the past, not 114, as the new report claims.

The new report's authors said it was still possible to avoid a "dramatic decay of biodiversity" through intensive conservation, but that rapid action was needed.

Pepper robot to go on sale

Pepper robot to go on sale to public

Last updated Jun 18, 2015, 5:19 AM PST

Pepper can respond to emotions, its makers say

Pepper, the humanoid robot that its makers say can recognise and respond to human emotions, goes on sale in Japan this weekend.

SoftBank, the company behind the robot, is planning to release 1,000 robots every month.

Pepper will sell for 198,000 yen (£1,000), and businesses will be able to rent it for 1,500 yen an hour.

Robotic expert Prof Noel Sharkey said SoftBank's business strategy was "risky".

Although the upfront price is relatively cheap for a sophisticated robot - SoftBank is actually selling it at below manufacturing costs - customers will also have to pay monthly service fees of up to 24,000 yen and sign up to a three-year contract.

"SoftBank is hoping to make money from apps, but it is risky as it is not clear whether anyone will develop any for it," said Prof Sharkey, from the University of Sheffield.

There will be 100 apps available for download at launch.

The robots will be manufactured by FoxConn. Chinese online retailer Alibaba is also partnering. Both are investing $118m in SoftBank's robotic division and will take 20% shares in the company.

Over-hyped

No date has yet been set for when Pepper will go on sale outside of Japan, but Softbank chief executive Masayoshi Son said it would probably happen next year.

Pepper can remember faces and is programmed to recognise human emotions.

"It looks excellent, and I think that it is good at conveying human-like gestures - but the way it detects human emotions might be over-hyped," said Prof Sharkey.

"I think that they are over-claiming on its speech functions, too. The conversations are very one-sided, and it asks a lot of questions," he added.

Featuring more than 20 motors and highly articulated arms, Pepper is being touted as a household robot, assisting elderly people or for use in a family.

But Prof Sharkey is not convinced it will be a hit with consumers.

"There is talk of it being an assistant, but it can't lift anything, so it is really a very limited companion," he said.

Japan has a rising elderly population, and the government is keen to use technology to help ease its overburdened healthcare system.

But the use of robotic assistants has not always gone well, according to Prof Sharkey.

"There is a big fuss when these things are launched in Japanese care homes, but go back after a year and they are in a cupboard," he said.

Rise and fall of the disaster droids

By Regan Morris

BBC News, Los Angeles

It's a scenario straight out of a Hollywood movie. A disaster too dangerous for humans to enter, so a robot must drive alone into the area, and do the dirty work of inspecting, repairing and clearing the site.

That was the scenario at the Darpa Robotics Challenge last weekend at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds.

The muscly, humanoid robots looked like Terminators, but they moved like drunks trying to pass a sobriety test. We were 35 miles from the heart of Hollywood, but a world away in terms of robot capabilities.

"It's like watching paint dry," remarked Brad Tousley, director of tactical technology at Darpa - the US Defense Department's research unit - as he watched the excruciatingly slow robots attempt to perform eight simple tasks in an hour.

At times it devolved into slapstick, with robots falling flat on their humanoid faces to groans and gasps (and laughter) from the crowds.

Team Nedo-JSK's robot, Jaxon, completed half of the eight tasks. It had to be stretchered off at one point after taking a fall during a task involving a valve handle

Robots unplugged

The finals involved the robots having to function untethered. And that meant a lot of accidents.

Only three out of 23 teams from around the world managed to complete all eight tasks.

The top $2m (£1.3m) prize went to South Korea's Team Kaist, which finished significantly faster than any other team in 44 minutes 28 seconds.

Three teams did not manage to complete any of the eight tasks, which included driving a car, drilling a hole in a wall, and walking up stairs.

Two surprise tasks were pulling a lever down on day one and unplugging a power cord from one outlet and plugging it into another socket.

"Drill baby, drill! Don't you want to get your PhD?" One spectator shouted as a robot struggled to manoeuvre the equipment.

Heckling at the Super Bowl - or World Cup - of robotics is also decidedly different from the world of football.

Typically, when a robot fell, team members would rush in to help, often carrying the robot out on a stretcher.

Team Tartan Rescue's Chimp was one of only three robots that managed to complete all the tasks

A chimp-like robot from Carnegie Mellon University dazzled the crowd during the first day of the competition by recovering from a hard fall getting out of the car.

Chimp got back up on its own without human help and kept working - truly showing the possibilities of what robots could do in a disaster.

It placed third in the competition, earning a $500,000 prize from Darpa.

Perhaps the biggest showman of the contest was second place winner, IHMC Robotics from Florida, which took home a $1m prize.

Its robot, nicknamed Running Man, was so confident on its second day finish that when it completed the final task of climbing stairs onto a podium, it thrust its humanoid arms in victory, did a little dance and then tripped and collapsed.

The Running Man robot tumbled while staging a victory dance

But Team Kaist was dramatically faster on day two and quietly finished with a time impossible for any of the others to beat.

Team Kaist's leader, Jun Ho Oh, credited his success with his robot's strong structure and ability to both walk and roll on its legs when needed.

And his robot did not fall down.

"When I saw the robots falling down, I felt a heartbreaking sensation," Jun said, adding that the real winners were the robots who managed to get back up and keep working.

"They overcame the disaster by themselves - that is the real meaning. They got back up."

Team Kaist's winning robot - DRC-Hubo - was able to drive a car...

... and then get out of it without falling over

Droid drop-outs

There were meant to be 25 teams competing, but Japan's team Hydra dropped out at the last minute because of an electronics accident during training.

A Chinese team was also due to compete but reportedly couldn't get its visas organised in time.

Darpa's Gill Pratt designed the challenge to become increasingly difficult over three years.

Thor-RD - a robot created by US-based roboticists - managed to turn a valve...

...but fell over when it was supposed to drill a hole in a wall. It only completed three of the eight tasks

He was inspired by the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, where robots were used to transmit video and data back in the aftermath but were not able to carry out repairs or prevent damage.

But the "D" in Darpa stands for "defence," not "disaster" and that makes some observers wary, fearing autonomous disaster response robots could become autonomous killer robots in the future.

The robots in the challenge did work semi-autonomously - driving cars and clearing or walking over rubble, all with intermittent communications with their human handlers, simulating a real disaster.

Today's slow drilling robot could be tomorrow's soldier touting an AK-47.

"The organisers of the Darpa Robotics Challenge as well as the entrants should make crystal clear that no research project will be aimed or contribute to the development of fully autonomous weapons systems, where there is no longer meaningful human control of targeting and attack decisions," said Mary Wareham, coordinator of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a global coalition of non-governmental organisations.

The robots were challenged with "mystery" tasks they had not prepared for, one of which was pulling a lever

Robotic weapons

Darpa officials say the contest was not about weaponising robots, but about advancing robotics.

But they didn't rule out the possibility that the technology could one day be used in warfare.

"Certainly robots like this could be adapted to have weapons as part of them but I could say the same thing about the healthcare robot that takes you from the bed to the shower," Mr Pratt said.

"They are just things - and they can be used for any number of purposes. And it's up to us in society to decide what they are going to be used for."

Team Aist-Nedo's HRP2+ robot was able to open a door...

... but failed to stay upright while trying to walk over rubble

The contest was predominantly made up of US academic teams, and then aside from the winning South Koreans, there were teams from Japan, Italy, Germany and Hong Kong.

Many of the roboticists say they think there is a cultural difference in how societies treat and relate to robots and that Westerners are not as open to robots as Japanese and Korean people.

Clark Haynes, of Carnegie Mellon University's team who built Chimp, said the school is more like Japan than the rest of the United States because it embraces a future where robots can improve our lives.

"The challenge is a collaboration between humans operating the robot and the robot itself," he said.

Team Valor - from Virginia Tech university - was one of four squads that competed but failed to score a single point

"It's not like these are robots with self-intent. The robots are just tools, it's just a better hammer for a unique task."

Some say robots are "immigrants from the future".

If that's true, we shouldn't fear them taking over our militaries or jobs - at least not yet anyway.

For now, they can barely walk or turn a door knob.

US Warns victims of "Chinese" hack

Chinese hackers are suspected of carrying out a "massive breach" of the personal data of nearly four million US government workers, officials said.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) confirmed that both current and past employees had been affected.

The breach could potentially affect every federal agency, officials said.

US officials said the hackers were believed to be based in China. Beijing responded by calling such claims "irresponsible".

OPM said it became aware of the breach in April during an "aggressive effort" to update its cyber security systems.

It said it would be contacting all those individuals whose personal data may have been breached in the coming weeks, and offering them 18 months of free credit monitoring and identity theft insurance.

OPM serves as the human resource department for the federal government. The agency issues security clearances and compiles records of all federal government employees.

Information stored on OPM databases includes employee job assignments, performance reviews and training, according to officials.

The breach did not involve background checks and clearance investigations, officials said.

China military unit 'behind prolific hacking'

Sony Pictures hack: Whodunnit?

Analysis by Tom Bateman, BBC News, Washington

It is the scale of what the OPM calls a "cyber intrusion" in April this year that is breathtaking - the records of four million former and current government employees may have been breached.

The agency is contacting all of those potentially affected, offering to insure them against identity fraud. Of even greater concern may be the fact that security clearance information on government officials could have been targeted.

US officials are only too aware of the real damage caused by such virtual threats. In the past year, a growing number of government agencies and companies - most notoriously Sony Pictures - have fallen victim to such attacks.

US hit by 'massive data breach'

Last updated 6 hours ago

A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee has said Chinese hackers were behind the attack.

Chinese hackers are suspected of carrying out a "massive breach" of the personal data of nearly four million US government workers, officials said.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) confirmed that both current and past employees had been affected.

The breach could potentially affect every federal agency, officials said.

US officials said the hackers were believed to be based in China. Beijing responded by calling such claims "irresponsible".

OPM said it became aware of the breach in April during an "aggressive effort" to update its cyber security systems.

It said it would be contacting all those individuals whose personal data may have been breached in the coming weeks, and offering them 18 months of free credit monitoring and identity theft insurance.

OPM serves as the human resource department for the federal government. The agency issues security clearances and compiles records of all federal government employees.

Information stored on OPM databases includes employee job assignments, performance reviews and training, according to officials.

The breach did not involve background checks and clearance investigations, officials said.

China military unit 'behind prolific hacking'

Sony Pictures hack: Whodunnit?

Analysis by Tom Bateman, BBC News, Washington

It is the scale of what the OPM calls a "cyber intrusion" in April this year that is breathtaking - the records of four million former and current government employees may have been breached.

The agency is contacting all of those potentially affected, offering to insure them against identity fraud. Of even greater concern may be the fact that security clearance information on government officials could have been targeted.

US officials are only too aware of the real damage caused by such virtual threats. In the past year, a growing number of government agencies and companies - most notoriously Sony Pictures - have fallen victim to such attacks.

Susan Collins, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the hackers were believed to be based in China.

She called the breach "yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances".

But China denied there was any official involvement in the attack.

"Cyber attacks are generally anonymous and conducted across borders and their origins are hard to trace," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular briefing.

"Not to carry out a deep investigation and keep using words such as 'possible' is irresponsible and unscientific."

Senator Susan Collins said the hackers were believed to be based in China

Previous hack attacks on US government

• In November 2014 a hack compromised files belonging to 25,000 employees of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as thousands of other federal workers

• In March 2014 hackers breached OPM networks, targeting government staff with security clearance, but the attempt was blocked before any data was stolen. The intrusion was traced to China

• In 2006, hackers believed to be based in China breached the system of a sensitive bureau in the US Department of Commerce. Hundreds of workstations had to be replaced

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are investigating the latest breach.

Ken Ammon, chief strategy officer of Xceedium - a cyber security firm - warned that the hacked data could be used to impersonate or blackmail federal employees with access to sensitive information.

Congressman Adam Schiff has called for cyber databases to be upgraded.

Americans "expect that federal computer networks are maintained with state of the art defences", Mr Schiff said.

"The cyber threat from hackers, criminals, terrorists and state actors is one of the greatest challenges we face on a daily basis, and it's clear that a substantial improvement in our cyber databases and defences is perilously overdue."

Are you a current or former employee of the Office of Personnel Management? Have you been contacted by the agency? You can share your experience by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

If you would be happy to speak further to a BBC journalist, please include a contact telephone number when emailing us your details.

BBC © 2015