Facebook’s Robot Army May Soon Determine If Your Live Video Is Offensive

Facebook — the company whose artificial intelligence has had a wee bit of trouble distinguishing between fake and authentic news sources — believes that its machine censors can be deployed to determine if a users’ live video stream is too naughty or offensive.

This is according to Reuters, which reports that Facebook is hoping to turn to “an algorithm that detects nudity, violence, or any of the things that are not according to our policies,” to potentially shut down users who are broadcasting live video that violates the site’s community standards guidelines.

Like most websites that allow users to freely post content, Facebook has long relied on its user base to flag and report allegedly offensive posts, images, and video. The use of AI — still in the research stage — puts Facebook in the position of potentially catching this material before its users do, though it appears that a real human may still need to make the final decision of whether a flagged video violates those standards.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Retailers Beef Up Ship-From-Store Operations To Fill Online Orders

For retailers that sell the same merchandise in person and online, shipping online orders from stores makes sense. Running out of hot items can mean ending promotions early or disappointing customers by canceling their orders, neither of which is a good idea during the stressful and crucial holiday season. Yet expanding ship-from-store is not as simple as it sounds at first.

Target’s chief operating officer explained to the Wall Street Journal that there’s a hidden bonus to doing business this way: greater variety for online shoppers.

Instead of duplicating the inventory in the e-commerce warehouse, the discounter can ship the most common colors and sizes of, say, a sweater from its stores while offering extended sizes and more colors online only. By shipping the popular colors from stores, the chain makes room for the extended colors and sizes in its warehouse.

If your local Toys ‘R’ Us store seems more full than in past years, for example, it isn’t just because the retailer is keeping more stock on hand than it used to, a bold experiment that it began last year. Those shelves crammed with merchandise are now also the e-commerce warehouse. Last year, the store filled 42% of its online orders from store shelves.

Online promotions give retailers the opportunity to end them when inventory runs low, which runs the risk of annoying customers. Toys ‘R’ Us found itself doing this in the past, and found itself making the impossible choice of using in-store inventory to fill online orders and running out of key items everywhere, or ending promotions for the holiday season early. It chose to end the sales to keep store stock in place, but has instead crammed stores with merchandise this year as an online backup plan.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Apple Reportedly Taking On Google Maps With Road-Tracking Drones

When it comes to tracking and recording America’s roadways it makes sense that companies like Google would deploy camera-equipped vehicles to cruise the streets. But Apple has a different idea: take to the sky. 

Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, reports that Apple will add a fleet of drones to its current roster of camera-and-sensor equipped minivans that criss-cross the U.S. in order to best rival Google and more quickly collect information for the company’s Maps app.

Under the new initiative, Apple will work with robotics and data-collection experts to capture and update maps faster than it’s currently able to with its fleet of actual road traveling vehicles.

Specifically, the drones will examine street signs and make note of areas under construction where roads are being improved to created. This data will then be sent to Apple techs who will “rapidly” update the app, Bloomberg reports.

In addition to collecting data about roadways, Apple is working to develop a system with recently acquired startup Indoor.io that would allow it to see inside buildings.

Indoor mapping, the source tells Bloomberg, would allow Apple to create maps of museums, airports, and other large buildings that could be confusing for consumers to navigate.

Bloomberg reports that the idea of using drones to map roads has been around for at least a year at Apple, as the company applied for a Federal Aviation Administration exemption to fly commercial drones in Sept. 2015.

The FAA granted the exemption in March, according to Bloomberg, giving it the ability to “operate an an unmanned aircraft system to conduct data collection, photography, and videography.”

It’s unclear when the drones could take flight. Apple declined to provide comment to Bloomberg on the new initiatives.

Apple Said to Fly Drones to Improve Maps Data and Catch Google [Bloomberg]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Big Tobacco Opening Stores To Teach People How To Vape

While millions of people remain hooked on traditional cigarettes, the tobacco industry knows that its future is increasingly becoming smokeless. Just yesterday, the CEO of Philip Morris admitted that his company could someday cease making cigarettes altogether. So it makes sense that some tobacco giants are now opening stores to promote and teach people how to use these new products.

No, the vaping stores you see on every corner here in the U.S. aren’t secretly run by the giant tobacco companies: so far, the new stores have only opened abroad. British American Tobacco opened its first store in Milan, Italy, today, where it will sell the new line of vaporizers under the company’s Vype brand, teaching customers how to use them.

The company’s CEO notes that the products might take a while to really catch on with consumers, comparing the inhalation of flavored vapor and (optionally) nicotine with non-alcoholic beer.

Philip Morris has a similar store in London, which serves a similar purpose of getting word out about products while reaching lots of current smokers who can share the products with others.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Nike Makes End-Run Around Retailers By Selling $720 Self-Tying Sneakers Itself

If you’re looking for Nike sneakers with self-tying laces, don’t go to FootLocker or Dick’s Sporting Goods: In an attempt to move away from relying on sports retailers to peddle its wares, Nike is cutting out the middleman and selling its new, pricey HyperAdapt shoes directly to consumers.

Let’s hope Marty McFly has been saving his pennies since 1984, because Nike’s new sneakers are far from cheap at $720 a pair, and you can only find them on the brand’s Nike+ app and at its new retail store in New York City, starting today.

The company is hoping to move away from the wholesale model and get consumers used to going directly to the source when shopping: Nike wants to double direct sales to consumers to $16 billion by 2020, The Wall Street Journal reports, in order to stay competitive with rivals like Adidas and Under Armour.

That’s something the sporting goods retail industry will definitely notice, analysts say, as Nike is the single-largest vendor to Dick’s Sporting Goods, Foot Locker, and Finish Line.

“They have to be worried about it,” John Kernan, senior retail analyst for brokerage Cowen & Co. told the WSJ.

Nike’s push into direct-to-consumer sales isn’t a sudden shift, it comes after a decade of work to expand its technology and consumer services. To that end, the company’s digital sport team has spent about $100 million on software products, including the Nike+ app, in the last four years, the WSJ notes.

Will its investments pay off? Will anyone actually want to pay $720 simply to cut out the task of tying one’s own shoes? That remains to be seen.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Nashville Asks Court To Dismiss Comcast’s Google-Fiber-Blocking Lawsuit

It’s time for the next episode of everyone’s favorite legal drama, “Comcast and AT&T do everything they can to block Google Fiber from coming to Nashville.” Most court proceedings are a months- or years-long series of back-and-forth filings before any hearings on the merits ever take place, and this one is no exception. This time around, it’s Nashville’s turn to ask the court to hear it out.

First, the pre-credits recap of our previous installments: Google Fiber considered coming to Nashville, Tennessee. In order to make that happen, local officials put forward an ordinance that would basically make it possible for Google to access local utility poles without being stonewalled by the incumbents. The incumbents, as you can probably guess, did not like this.

Comcast and AT&T tried to write an alternative law that would suit them better, but to no avail. The Nashville metro council voted to adopt the original pole attachment proposal in September, and city Mayor Megan Barry signed it into law shortly thereafter.

The incumbents, which had been threatening to sue if the city adopted the law, wasted no time making good on their threats. AT&T got there first, filing suit just two days after the council adopted the measure. A month later, Comcast filed its suit too.

And that brings us to Nashville’s action this week, in which the city is asking the court (PDF) to dismiss Comcast’s lawsuit entirely, on the basis that it “fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”

Basically, the city’s lawyers are saying, Comcast is intervening where the law doesn’t let it, and it’s not asking for anything that the court can give it.

The motion to dismiss argues that Comcast is out of its lane on basically every issue. First, because Comcast has not shown that the existing ordinance is pre-empted by federal law. And if it does somehow have a conflict with FCC regulations — which the Commission may not think it does — then the court should kick it over to the FCC anyway.

Second, the motion continues, Comcast hasn’t shown sufficiently that it has standing to file a state claim, and even if it can show standing, the suit fails on the substance, as the local government does in fact have the right to regulate the Nashville Electric Service’s rights-of-way (i.e. access to utility poles).

Third, Comcast hasn’t shown that its existing agreement with the city will actually suffer “the ‘substantial impairment’ necessary to establish a constitutional conflict.” That’s in response to the claim both Comcast and AT&T have made against the city that the new ordinance interferes so badly with their existing contracts that it violates both the Tennessee and United States constitutions.

“For these reasons,” the petition concludes, “the Metropolitan Government requests that this Court dismiss Comcast’s Complaint in its entirety and enter judgment declaring the Clime Once ordinance constitutional.”

by Kate Cox via Consumerist

Hacker’s Company Handing Out Code That Can Turn Any Car Into A Self-Driving Vehicle

Does making a product free mean you don’t have to answer to authorities who might come knocking later? One experienced hacker seems to think his startup can avoid liability while giving away code for a software kit to convert cars into self-driving vehicles.

Comma.ai, a new self-driving company founded by well-known hacker George Shotz, released the free kit on Wednesday in an effort to give developers the tools to build a device that can essentially turn any car into an autonomous vehicle, The Washington Post reports. By making it free, Shotz is hoping to keep regulators at bay.

See, originally, he’d planned to sell the kit for $999. But after announcing as much at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference, he received a warning letter from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The agency wanted information on the safety of the product — so he canceled the launch, saying he didn’t have the money to hire lawyers and get the government to sign off. Instead, he figured he’d just give it away. His thinking? Since NHTSA regulates commercial vehicles, if he’s not selling anything, he doesn’t have to have the agency’s approval.

“We want to be the Android operating system for self-driving cars,” Hotz said at a news conference Wednesday.

Here’s how it works: the code lets anyone — most likely very talented hackers — to build a dashcam of sorts that plugs into a port in the car. Users have to first build the device with a 3D printer, and they must have an Android OnePlus 3 phone to run the code and provide the camera that can scan the road. Shotz says the software is designed to shut down and slow down the car after six minutes of inactivity from the driver. The software currently only works with some Honda and Acura vehicles.

Hotz says it’s an open-source alternative to Tesla’s autopilot, and not software for a fully autonomous car. NHTSA didn’t comment on the software, but some advocates are calling it out as unsafe.

“Comma is a clear threat to highway safety, and attempting to release it like this is absolutely outrageous,” John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog told The Post, noting that NHTSA can pull any car off the road at any time if it has features that make it an imminent danger. “NHTSA and the California DMV should act now to keep vehicles equipped with Hotz’s device off the highway.”

Further, adding such a device to your car would be breaking the law, he says: in California, an autonomous vehicle isn’t allowed on a public road without a permit that comes with $5 million in insurance, and a demonstrable training program for drivers.

But Hotz says the product isn’t meant for consumers, but for “tinkerers.”

“These are people who, if they wanted to do bad things, they already could,” he said.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist