Emerging tech news
BARKING DRONES USED TO ROUND UP SHEEP MAN’S NEW BEST FRIEND.
It might sound barking mad, but drones are being used by New Zealand farmers to round up sheep and heard them to fairer pastures. Cory Lamberth, a shepherd from North Canterbury currently uses a Mavic Enterprise to record and playback barking noises using a mounted speakerphone to move sheep more efficiently. While it can’t be used in bad weather, the device stresses the heard less and is much faster over long distances according to Lamberth.
ALEXA TO TESTIFY IN MURDER CASE ALEXA, WHO DONE IT?
The testimony of an Alexa smart Speaker has been subpoenaed in a Stratford County trial for the murder of two women in Farmington, New Hampshire in 2017. The court order sent to Amazon requests all recordings made by the device between January 27th and the 29th, as well as any additional information identifying cellular devices linked to it during that period. The state asserted that there is probable cause for the murders occurring in the kitchen of the property the Echo smart speaker was collected from.
UBER NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR FATAL SELF-DRIVING CAR ACCIDENT COMPANY NOT TO BLAME FOR DEADLY AUTOMATED DRIVING INCIDENT.
A Yapava County Court has found Uber not liable in the first case of a self-driving car fatally injuring a pedestrian. 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg was struck at high speed by the autonomous vehicle as she crossed a Tempe, Arizona highway, in March 2018. While released dashcam footage of the incident shows no sign of the vehicle slowing or registering the pedestrian the court found the company to not be culpable for the unfortunate outcome. A separate case determining the responsibility of backup safety driver, Rafaela Vasquez is still underway in Maricopa county.
NYPD USES AI TO DETECT INTERPRECINCT CRIMINAL ACTIVITY AI INSPECTOR GADGET USED TO LINK UNSOLVED CRIMES IN NYC.
Over the past couple of years the NYPD have been using an in-house machine learning software to find patterns between reported crimes in order to link incidents that were potentially committed by the same culprits. The software mainly analyses the details of robberies, thefts and larcenies across the 77 precincts of the NYPD, a job that previously required a significant time commitment from investigators according to NYPD’s assistant commissioner of data analytics and co-creator of the software, Evan Levine.