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From the face scanner that will check in some attendees to the cameras-everywhere array of digital products, the CES gadget show is all-in on surveillance technology — whether it calls it that or not. Nestled in the “smart home” and “smart city” showrooms at the sprawling Las Vegas consumer tech conference are devices that see, hear and track the people they encounter. Some of them also analyze their looks and behavior. The technology on display includes eyelid-tracking car dashboard cameras to prevent distracted driving and “rapid DNA” kits for identifying a person from a cheek swab sample. All these talking speakers, doorbell cameras and fitness trackers come with the promise of making life easier or more fun, but they ’re also potentially powerful spying tools. And the skeptics who raise…

Grace Brown’s schedule at West Potomac High School in northern Virginia is filled with all the usual academics, and she’s packed in Latin, chorus and piano as extras. What she can’t cram into the 8:10 a.m. - 2:55 p.m. school day is gym class. So she’s taking that one minus the gym, and on her own time. The 14-year-old freshman is getting school credit for virtual physical education, a concept that, as strange as it may sound, is being helped along by availability of wearable fitness trackers. For students whose tests and textbooks have migrated to screens, technology as gym equipment may have been only a matter of time. Grace, who lives in Alexandria, wears a school-issued Fitbit on her wrist while getting in at least three 30-minute workouts a…

The Trump administration is proposing new rules to guide future federal regulation of artificial intelligence used in medicine, transportation and other industries. But the vagueness of the principles announced by the White House is unlikely to satisfy AI watchdogs who have warned of a lack of accountability as computer systems are deployed to take on human roles in high-risk social settings, such as mortgage lending or job recruitment. The White House said that in deciding regulatory action, U.S. agencies “must consider fairness, non-discrimination, openness, transparency, safety, and security.” But federal agencies must also avoid setting up restrictions that “needlessly hamper AI innovation and growth,” reads a memo being sent to U.S. agency chiefs from Russell Vought, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. “Agencies must avoid a precautionary…

Now or Never Brett Kissel The eighth studio album of Canadian country music singer Brett Kissel covers various stylistic bases. “I just felt there was a little bit of something for everybody on this record, which was by design,” the Alberta native has said. FIVE FACTS: 1. The musical styles covered on the album include conventional modern country, power balladry and acoustic folk rock. 2. Kissel has said of the album’s variety: “I’m so deep-rooted in tradition that I feel I’m allowed to push the boundaries of country music, because my heroes did that too.” 3. On the subject of his heroes, he has admitted that the track “That Country’s Music” is an “ode” to them, adding: “It’s my favorite song possibly I’ve ever written, because I love this genre…

The film “Joker” has topped the nominations for the British Academy film awards announced Tuesday. The movie about the origins of the comic book villain received 11 BAFTA nominations including best film, best actor for Joaquin Phoenix, and best director. Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic “The Irishman” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” were close behind with 10 nominations each, including for best picture. Sam Mendes’ war film “1917” also earned a best picture nomination two days after winning that award at the Golden Globes. The Korean film “Parasite” also is on the best picture list. In addition to Phoenix, the best actor nominees included Leonardo DiCaprio, Adam Driver, Taron Egerton and Jonathan Pryce. The best leading actress will be chosen from among Scarlett Johansson, Saoirse Ronan, Charlize…

Astronomers have discovered a titanic wave of star-forming gases practically right under our noses in the Milky Way. Harvard University scientists reported that this massive structure has been hiding out in the Milky Way galaxy’s spiral arm closest to Earth. The researchers were building a 3-D map of our galaxy’s interstellar matter, using a star census gathered by Europe’s Gaia spacecraft when they spotted the wave-shaped structure. It’s an astounding 50 quadrillion miles (85 quadrillion kilometers) long and it’s home to tens of thousands of baby stars, with the potential for countless more stellar births, according to the paper published in the journal Nature. All these stellar nurseries, or star-forming blobs of gas, are interconnected, according to Harvard’s Catherine Zucker. Together, they form this wavy, gassy filament, why this shape…

Elton John and Chris Hemsworth are among the celebrities donating big bucks for relief efforts as wildfires engulf Australia. Hemsworth, the Australian actor who plays Thor in the Marvel movie franchise, took to social media Monday to share that he will donate $1 million and asked his millions of followers to show support as well. He said that “every penny counts.” So far, the wildfires have scorched an area twice the size of the U.S. state of Maryland. The blazes have killed 25 people and destroyed 2,000 homes. The fires, fueled by drought and the country’s hottest and driest year on record, have been raging since September, months earlier than is typical for Australia’s annual wildfire season. John announced during his Farewell Yellow Brick Road concert in Sydney, Australia, that…

Matt Halprin, the global head of trust and safety for YouTube, has a tough job: He oversees the teams that decide what is allowed and what should be prohibited on YouTube. The Google-owned site has come under fire recently for allowing videos that feature what many find offensive or violent, and for not doing enough to protect kids online. Halprin has to make difficult decisions to craft policies that keep the site as safe as YouTube wants it to be, while balancing what the company considers one of its core tenets: people’s free speech. The Media spoke recently with Halprin about how his team works. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity. Q: How does your team operate? A: They’re separated into policy development and policy incubation.…

Though the 2010s saw incredible advancements in space exploration, including the Curiosity Lander, SpaceX reusable rockets and a stunning image of the black hole, it’s the 2020s where innovations will take us to new heights, with out-of-this-world opportunities awaiting. EXCITING PARTNERSHIPS With the space exploration battle heating up and NASA committed to making innovations and discoveries before other nations, it came as no surprise to hear that they had recruited a series of commercial lunar lander companies to work on their new Artemis moon program. Back in November, the company confirmed that SpaceX, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corp, Ceres Robotics and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc would join their Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, working together to return astronauts to the moon by 2024 . The partnership not only helps to…

It’s been a good time for World War I buffs — especially if they’re also movie buffs. A year ago director Peter Jackson applied state-of-the-art technology to century-old war footage to bring the Great War alive with sudden, stunning immediacy in his documentary “They Shall Not Grow Old.” And now, in the feature film “1917,” another of our most talented directors, Sam Mendes, has similarly taken top technology — and the best cinematography, courtesy of Roger Deakins — to give us a different, equally compelling look at that cruel war, through the eyes of two ordinary soldiers asked to perform an extraordinary task. The special sauce here, which you may have heard about: “1917” appears as if it were shot in one seamless take — or two, if you include…

A Netflix wave swept over the 77th Golden Globe nominations, where the streaming company dominated with 34 total nominations, including four films up for best picture and four series nominated for the top television awards. Noah Baumbach’s divorce drama “Marriage Story” led all films with six nominations including best picture, drama, and acting nods for its two leads, Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, in nominations announced Monday by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in Beverly Hills, California. “Marriage Story,” which landed on Netflix on Friday after a three-week run in theaters, also earned nods for Baumbach’s script, Laura Dern’s supporting performance and Randy Newman’s score. The only notable category it missed on was Baumbach for best director. Three other Netflix films landed best picture nods, chief among them Martin Scorsese’s…

Not much has caused a disturbance in the “Star Wars” galaxy quite like Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi,” an erratic but electric movie that, regardless of how you felt about it, was something worth arguing about. The same can’t be said for J. J. Abrams’“Rise of Skywalker,” a scattershot, impatiently paced, fan-servicing finale that repurposes so much of what came before that it feels as though someone searching for the hyperspace button accidentally pressed the spin cycle instead. A laundry list of plot points cluster like an asteroid field in “Rise of Skywalker.” It’s a spirited, hectic and ultimately forgettable conclusion of the Skywalker saga begun 42 years ago by George Lucas. It was also surely a lot to ask for. Abrams, having already ably and nimbly resuscitated Lucas’ space…

Hong Kong authorities activated a newly created “serious response” level as fears spread about a mysterious infectious disease that may have been brought back by visitors to a mainland Chinese city. Eight possible cases have been reported of a viral pneumonia that has also infected at least 44 people in Wuhan, an inland city west of Shanghai, about 900 kilometers (570 miles) north of Hong Kong. The outbreak, which emerged last month, has revived memories of the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic that started in southern China and killed more than 700 people in the mainland, Hong Kong and elsewhere. The serious response level indicates a moderate impact on Hong Kong’s population of 7.5 million people. It is the second highest in a three-tier system that is part of a new government…

Commercial airlines are rerouting flights throughout the Middle East to avoid potential danger during heightened tensions between the United States and Iran. Jumbled schedules could effect as many as 15,000 passengers per day, lengthen flight times by an average of 30 to 90 minutes, and severely bruise the bottom line for airlines, industry analysts said. There is anxiety that the conflict between the longtime foes could intensify following Iranian ballistic missile strikes Tuesday on two Iraqi bases that house U.S. troops. The attacks were retaliation for the U.S. killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike near Baghdad last week. “In a war situation, the first casualty is always air transport, said Dubai-based aviation consult Mark Martin, pointing to airline bankruptcies during the Persian Gulf and…

Facebook says it is banning “deepfake” videos, the false but realistic clips created with artificial intelligence and sophisticated tools, as it steps up efforts to fight online manipulation. But the policy leaves plenty of loopholes. The social network said this week that it’s beefing up its policies for removing videos edited or synthesized in ways that aren’t apparent to the average person, and which could dupe someone into thinking the video’s subject said something he or she didn’t actually say. Created by artificial intelligence or machine learning, deepfakes combine or replace content to create images that can be almost impossible to tell are not authentic. “While these videos are still rare on the internet, they present a significant challenge for our industry and society as their use increases,” Facebook’s vice…

When the nation’s largest electric utility preemptively shut off power last fall to prevent wildfires in California, customers lost more than just their lights — some lost their phones, too. Data from the Federal Communications Commission shows 874 cellphone towers were offline during an Oct. 27 power shutoff that affected millions of people. That included more than half of the cell towers in Marin County alone. The outages mean people who depend solely on cellphones couldn’t call 911 or receive emergency notifications, compounding the dangers associated with an unprecedented power outage in an era dominated by wireless communication. On Wednesday, representatives from AT&T and Verizon are scheduled to testify before state lawmakers about the outages and ways to prevent them. It’s the second time state lawmakers will have hauled in…

Gemini Man Henry Brogan (Will Smith) retires from work as an elite assassin for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), only to later be attacked by an assassin startlingly similar to his younger self. Brogan later discovers that the assailant is a clone of himself, but dispatched to kill him. FIVE FACTS: 1. Development of this film started back in 1997 but halted due to technical difficulties in creating what would be a digitally de-aged clone of the lead actor. 2. Screenwriter Darren Lemke devised the original concept and is still credited as a contributor to the finished screenplay. 3. The film almost entered production in 2008, when Nicolas Cage was linked to the lead role. 4. This is Smith’s fourth team-up with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, after the first two Bad…

Ricky Gervais made a big deal Sunday about how this was the fifth and final time he was going to host the Golden Globes. Maybe that’s true. Maybe not. But it’s the frame he used this time for his devil-may-care act of jokes that provoke a swift intake of breath. Harvey Weinstein and Ronan Farrow references. A Felicity Huffman license plate line. A biting commentary that actors would line up for work if ISIS ran a streaming service. A bleeped, bawdy punchline about Judi Dench. Gervais has a sterling track record; that’s why he’s been back five times. But it was hard to miss the weariness in some of the faces of audience members watching him Sunday. With two awards to go Sunday and an 11 p.m. Eastern deadline already…

The former head of HBO, Richard Plepler, has signed an exclusive production deal with Apple to make TV shows and movies for the iPhone maker’s new streaming service, Apple TV Plus. Plepler is well known in the entertainment industry and cultivated HBO’s reputation for “prestige”TV. He left the company after AT&T bought its owner, Time Warner. AT&T began changing Time Warner, now known as WarnerMedia, to fuel the creation of more content for its own streaming service, HBO Max, which is expected to launch this spring. AT&T has kept the HBO name for the service but made it more mass-market than the cable channel, including adding old hit TV shows like “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory.” Apple TV Plus launched last fall with a significantly smaller catalog than Netflix,…

The first batch of space-baked cookies is back on Earth, along with muscle-bound “mighty” mice and other space station experiments. SpaceX provided the ride home Tuesday, a month after its Dragon capsule arrived at the International Space Station. The capsule parachuted into the Pacific, returning 3,800 pounds of gear. Researchers want to inspect the handful of chocolate chip cookies baked by astronauts in a special Zero G oven just in time for Christmas. The oven launched to the space station in November, so astronauts could pop in pre-made cookie dough provided by DoubleTree. A spokesman for the hotel chain said five cookies were baked up there, one at a time. The company plans to share details of this first-of-its-kind experiment in the coming weeks. “We made space cookies and milk…

It has been described as Australia’s Galapagos Islands and has long been a refuge for some of the country’s most endangered creatures. But devastating wildfires over recent days have undone decades of careful conservation work on Kangaroo Island and have threatened to wipe out some of the island’s unique fauna altogether. Experts working on the island say the fires have killed thousands of koalas and kangaroos, and also have raised questions about whether any members of a mouse-like marsupial species that carries its young in a pouch have survived. Similarly, it remains unclear how many from a unique flock of glossy black-cockatoos got away from the flames and whether they have a future on an island where much of their habitat has gone up in smoke. Located off the coast…