A sweeping trade agreement, ranging from banking to beef, has been reached between Washington and Beijing, the U.S. Commerce Department announced on Thursday.

“It was pretty much a Herculean accomplishment to get this done,” said U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. “This is more than has been done in the whole history of U.S.-China relations on trade.”

The breakthrough results from an agreement U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping made during their meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on April 6.

Trump “was briefed more or less every single day” as negotiations progressed since then, Ross said.

Beef imports

Following one more round of “technical consultations,” China has agreed to allow U.S. beef imports no later than July 16, consistent with international food and animal safety standards, Ross told reporters at the White House.

The United States Cattlemen’s Association applauded the agreement, saying market access to China is crucial for its members.

“Success in this arena will drive the U.S. cattle market and increase demand for U.S. beef” in China, association president Kenny Graner told VOA.

In exchange, Washington and Beijing are to resolve outstanding issues that would allow imports to the U.S. of cooked poultry from China “as soon as possible,” according to the Commerce Department.

Another significant breakthrough will see American liquefied natural gas (LNG) going to China. Under the agreement Chinese companies will be permitted “at any time to negotiate all types of contractual arrangement with U.S. LNG exporters, including long term contracts,” according to the Commerce Department.

This is “a very big change,” said Ross, noting China is trying to wean itself off coal at a time “it doesn’t produce enough natural gas to meet its needs.”

Financial, other business services

Among other action listed in the 100-Day Action Plan:

* China is to allow, by July 16, “wholly foreign-owned financial services firms” to provide credit ratings services and to begin licensing procedures for credit investigation.

* U.S.-owned suppliers of electronic payment services (EPS) will be able to apply for licensing in China under new guidelines.

* China is to issue bond underwriting and settlement licenses to two qualified U.S. financial institutions by July 16.

* China’s National Biosafety Committee is to meet by the end of this month to conduct science-based evaluations of all eight pending U.S. biotechnology product applications “to assess the safety of the products for their intended use.” Those that pass the tests are to get certificates within 20 working days.

The outcome of the joint dialogue will also see a United States delegation attending China’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing next week.

A U.S.-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue will be held this summer, according to the Commerce Department, to deepen engagement on these and other issues.

“There are probably 500 items you could potentially discuss” in the wider one-year plan for bilateral trade, Ross added.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Television journalist Julia Kirienko was sheltering with Ukrainian soldiers and medics two miles (three kilometers) from the front when their cellphones began buzzing over the noise of the shelling. Everyone got the same text message at the same time.

“Ukrainian soldiers,” it warned, “they’ll find your bodies when the snow melts.”

Text messages like the one Kirienko received have been sent periodically to Ukrainian forces fighting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern part of the country. The threats and disinformation represent a new form of information warfare, the 21st-century equivalent of dropping leaflets on the battlefield.

“This is pinpoint propaganda,” said Nancy Snow, a professor of public diplomacy at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies.

The Associated Press has found that the messages are almost certainly being sent through cell site simulators, surveillance tools long used by U.S. law enforcement to track suspects’ cellphones. Photos, video, leaked documents and other clues gathered by Ukrainian journalists suggest the equipment may have been supplied by the Kremlin.

The texts have been arriving since 2014, shortly after the fighting erupted. The AP documented nearly four dozen of them, including the one that Kirienko received on Jan. 31 in Avdiivka, a battle-scarred town outside the principal rebel-held city of Donetsk.

The messages typically say things such as “Leave and you will live” or “Nobody needs your kids to become orphans.” Many are disguised to look as if they are coming from fellow soldiers.

Fake towers

In 2015, Ukrainian soldiers defending the railroad town of Debaltseve were sent texts appearing to come from comrades claiming their unit’s commander had deserted. Another set of messages warned that Ukrainian forces were being decimated. “We should run away,” they said.

“They were mostly threatening and demoralizing, saying that our commanders had betrayed us and we were just cannon fodder,” said Roman Chashurin, who served as a tank gunner in Debaltseve.

Ukrainian military and intelligence services had no comment on the phenomenon, but government and telecommunications officials are well aware of what’s going on.

A 2014 investigation by a major Ukrainian cellphone company concluded that cell site simulators were to blame for the rogue messages, according to an information security specialist who worked on the inquiry. He spoke on the condition that neither he nor his former firm be identified, citing a nondisclosure agreement.

Col. Serhiy Demydiuk, the head of Ukraine’s national cyberpolice unit, said in an interview that the country’s intelligence services knew the devices were being used as well.

“Avdiivka showed that the Russian side was using fake towers,” he said. “They are using them constantly.”

Cell site simulators work by impersonating cellphone towers, allowing them to intercept or even fake data. Heath Hardman, a former U.S. Marines signals analyst who operated the devices in Iraq and Afghanistan, said they were routinely used by American military intelligence officers to hunt insurgents.

Sending mass text messages in wartime isn’t entirely new. The Islamic militant group Hamas sent threatening messages to random Israelis during the 2009 conflict over Gaza, for example, though it is not clear how that was done.

Effectiveness of texts

Cell site simulators significantly sharpen the ability of propagandists to tailor their messages to a specific place or situation, according to Snow, the academic.

“There’s just something about viewing a message on your phone that just makes people more susceptible or vulnerable to its impact,” she said.

The type of hardware involved remains a matter of speculation. But last year, the Ukrainian investigative website InformNapalm published a video and photographs appearing to show a LEER-3, a Russian truck-mounted electronic warfare system, in the Donetsk area. InformNapalm also disclosed what it described as leaked Russian military documents discussing the LEER-3’s deployment to the Luhansk area of eastern Ukraine.

A 2015 article in Russia’s Military Review magazine said the LEER-3 has a cell site simulator built into a drone that is capable of acting over a 6-kilometer-wide area and hijacking up to 2,000 cellphone connections at once. That makes it a “pretty plausible” source for the rogue texts in Ukraine, said Hardman, the former signals analyst.

Russia’s Defense Ministry did not return a request for comment. Moscow has long denied any direct role in the fighting in Ukraine, despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary.

The effectiveness of the propaganda texts is an open question. Soldiers say they typically shrug them off.

“I can’t say that it had any influence on us,” said Chashurin, the former tank gunner. “We were even joking that they must be so afraid of us the only thing they can do is to spam us with these texts.”

But Svetlana Andreychuk, a volunteer who has made frequent trips to the front line to distribute food and supplies, said the threats and mockery sometimes hit a nerve in a grinding conflict that has claimed more than 9,900 lives.

“Some people are psychologically influenced,” she said. “It’s coming regularly. People are so tired. You see people dying. And then you face this.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Waves of lava flow inside the largest volcano crater on Jupiter’s fourth biggest moon, Loki.

Researchers at the University of California Berkeley were able to take advantage of a celestial alignment between Loki and another moon, Europa, to make the discovery.

Loki, which is the most volcanic body in the solar system, has over 400 active volcanoes, and Loki Patera is that moon’s largest crater. Loki is named after the Norse god, and patera means a bowl-shaped volcanic crater.

In 2015, when Europa passed in front of the moon Io, it cast a shadow, allowing researchers to measure the ultraviolet radiation. That observation revealed a large temperature contrast inside the Loki Patera crater, which measures about 204 kilometers across. It has an area of 21,500 square kilometers, which is larger than Lake Ontario.

That, researchers say, suggests “the lava had overturned in two waves that swept from west to east at about a kilometer per day.”

“If Loki Patera is a sea of lava, it encompasses an area more than a million times that of a typical lava lake on Earth,” said lead study author Katherine de Kleer, grad student at the University of California, Berkeley. “In this scenario, portions of cool crust sink, exposing the incandescent magma underneath and causing a brightening in the infrared.”

Loki Patera’s crater is “shaped like a donut,” and the observations showed the two waves on either side of the hole. They believe the waves did not form simultaneously.

“The velocity of overturn is also different on the two sides of the island, which may have something to do with the composition of the magma or the amount of dissolved gas in bubbles in the magma,” de Kleer said. “There must be differences in the magma supply to the two halves of the Patera, and whatever is triggering the start of overturn manages to trigger both halves at nearly the same time but not exactly. These results give us a glimpse into the complex plumbing system under Loki Patera.”

The paper was published this week in the journal Nature.
…

From: MeNeedIt

In just a few years, well-mannered self-driving robotaxis will share the roads with reckless, law-breaking human drivers. The prospect is causing migraines for the people developing the robotaxis.

A self-driving car would be programmed to drive at the speed limit. Humans routinely exceed it by 10 to 15 mph (16 to 24 kph) — just try entering the New Jersey Turnpike at normal speed. Self-driving cars wouldn’t dare cross a double yellow line; humans do it all the time. And then there are those odd local traffic customs to which humans quickly adapt.

In Los Angeles and other places, for instance, there’s the “California Stop,” where drivers roll through stop signs if no traffic is crossing. In Southwestern Pennsylvania, courteous drivers practice the “Pittsburgh Left,” where it’s customary to let one oncoming car turn left in front of them when a traffic light turns green. The same thing happens in Boston. During rush hours near Ann Arbor, Michigan, drivers regularly cross a double-yellow line to queue up for a left-turn onto a freeway.

“There’s an endless list of these cases where we as humans know the context, we know when to bend the rules and when to break the rules,” said Raj Rajkumar, a computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who leads the school’s autonomous car research.

Although autonomous cars are likely to carry passengers or cargo in limited areas during the next three to five years, experts say it will take many years before robotaxis can coexist with human-piloted vehicles on most side streets, boulevards and freeways. That’s because programmers have to figure out human behavior and local traffic idiosyncrasies. And teaching a car to use that knowledge will require massive amounts of data and big computing power that is prohibitively expensive at the moment.

“Driverless cars are very rule-based, and they don’t understand social graces,” said Missy Cummings, director of Duke University’s Humans and Autonomy Lab.

Driving customs and road conditions are dramatically different across the globe, with narrow, congested lanes in European cities, and anarchy in Beijing’s giant traffic jams. In India’s capital, New Delhi, luxury cars share poorly marked and congested lanes with bicycles, scooters, trucks, and even an occasional cow or elephant.

Then there is the problem of aggressive humans who make dangerous moves such as cutting cars off on freeways or turning left in front of oncoming traffic. In India, for example, even when lanes are marked, drivers swing from lane to lane without hesitation.

Already there have been isolated cases of human drivers pulling into the path of cars such as Teslas, knowing they will stop because they’re equipped with automatic emergency braking.

“It’s hard to program in human stupidity or someone who really tries to game the technology,” says John Hanson, spokesman for Toyota’s autonomous car unit.

Kathy Winter, vice president of automated driving solutions for Intel, is optimistic that the cars will be able to see and think like humans before 2030.

Cars with sensors for driver-assist systems already are gathering data about road signs, lane lines and human driver behavior. Winter hopes auto and tech companies developing autonomous systems and cars will contribute this information to a giant database.

Artificial intelligence developed by Intel and other companies eventually could access the data and make quick decisions similar to humans, Winter says.

Programmers are optimistic that someday the cars will be able to handle even Beijing’s traffic. But the cost could be high, and it might be a decade or more before Chinese regulators deem self-driving cars reliable enough for widespread public use, said John Zeng of LMC Automotive Consulting.

Intel’s Winter expects fully autonomous cars to collect, process and analyze four terabytes of data in 1 { hours of driving, which is the average amount a person spends in a car each day. That’s equal to storing over 1.2 million photos or 2,000 hours of movies. Such computing power now costs over $100,000 per vehicle, Zeng said. But that cost could fall as more cars are built.

Someday autonomous cars will have common sense programmed in so they will cross a double-yellow line when warranted or to speed up and find a gap to enter a freeway. Carnegie Mellon has taught its cars to handle the “Pittsburgh Left” by waiting a full second or longer for an intersection to clear before proceeding at a green light. Sensors also track crossing traffic and can figure out if a driver is going to stop for a sign or red light. Eventually there will be vehicle-to-vehicle communication to avoid crashes.

Still, some skeptics say computerized cars will never be able to think exactly like humans.

“You’ll never be able to make up a person’s ability to perceive what’s the right move at the time, I don’t think,” said New Jersey State Police Sgt. Ed Long, who works in the traffic and public safety office.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Sprinkle the sequins, spark up the disco lights and get ready for battle — it’s time for the Eurovision Song Contest , a celebration of kitsch and cheesy pop with an undercurrent of politics and patriotism. More than a singing contest, it’s diplomacy in dancing shoes.

This week musical acts from more than 40 countries are taking the stage in Kyiv to vie for the Eurovision crown, watched by some 200 million television viewers. The 62nd annual contest has clean-cut crooners, electro beats, yodeling Romanians and even a dancing gorilla. But there is also a big absence: Russia, whose participation has been scuttled by the country’s diplomatic and military conflict with neighbor Ukraine.

Russia is one of Eurovision’s heavy hitters, tied with Sweden for the most top-five finishes this century. But this year’s Russian entrant, Yuliya Samoylova, was blocked by host Ukraine because she had toured in Crimea after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula.

In response, Russia’s state-owned Channel 1 television is refusing to broadcast the contest, replacing Saturday’s final with a screening of the film “Alien.”

Russia has been angry since last year, when Ukrainian singer Jamala won the contest with “1944.” The song described the deportations of Crimean Tatars to Central Asia under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, but also hinted at their recent treatment under Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As the 2016 winner, Ukraine is this year’s Eurovision host.

John Kennedy O’Connor, author of Eurovision’s official history, said Ukraine has long used Eurovision as a way to annoy Russia.

“Last time the contest was in Kyiv it was a song about the Orange Revolution and it was allowed to compete,” he said. “Ukraine has been needling away for a long time and now the contest is going to be in a real crisis.”

The Moscow-Kyiv split is a headache for Eurovision’s producer, the European Broadcasting Union, which strives mightily to keep pop and politics separate. Overtly political flags and banners are banned, and lyrics are monitored for provocative content. In 2009 the EBU nixed the Georgian entry “We Don’t Wanna Put In,” a dig at Putin. The union has been criticized for not barring “1944” last year, allowing Russia-Ukraine tensions to fester.

The acrimony is ironic, since Eurovision was founded in 1956 to bring the recently warring countries of Europe together. It launched a year before the foundation of the European Economic Community, forerunner of the European Union.

“Eurovision, like the EEC, was born out of this passionate belief that we mustn’t have another war in Europe,” said Chris West, author of “Eurovision!” — a history of the contest and the continent. “Both institutions were driven by this sense of ‘never again.’”

From its launch with seven countries, Eurovision has grown to include more than 40, including non-European nations such as Israel and — somewhat controversially — far-off Australia.

The contest helped launch the careers of Sweden’s ABBA — victors in 1974 with “Waterloo” — Canada’s Celine Dion, who won for Switzerland in 1988, and Irish high-steppers Riverdance, the half-time entertainment in 1994.

Eurovision has a huge gay following and has become a symbol of optimistic liberalism — this year’s motto is “celebrate diversity.” Victories by transgender Israeli singer Dana International in 1998 and bearded Austrian drag queen Conchita Wurst in 2014 were hailed by liberals and condemned by conservatives — notably in Russia, where nationalist politicians cited the contest as evidence of Western degeneracy.

Onstage, many Eurovision-watchers expect this year to bring resurgence for western Europe after years of eastern and Nordic dominance. The bookies’ favorites are Portuguese balladeer Salvador Sobral with the syrupy “Amar Pelos Dois” (”Love For Both of Us”) and Italy’s Francesco Gabbani , who is accompanied by a dancer in a gorilla suit on “Occidentali’s Karma,” (”Westerner’s Karma”), a cheekily sardonic look at human evolution.

O’Connor says the Italian song has the qualities of a Eurovision classic.

“It’s so out there and it’s so outrageous and it’s so silly,” he said. “But it’s also very, very catchy.”

One country not expecting a first-place finish is Britain. The U.K. has not won since 1997, and many Britons suspect politics lies behind the country’s poor showing. Winners are decided by the votes of viewers and national juries, and regional alliances are often evident. Greece and Cyprus routinely give each other maximum points, as do the Nordic and Baltic states.

Britain is seen as having few allies, and some worry the country’s decision to leave the EU may further harm the chances of U.K. contestant Lucie Jones , performing the ballad “Never Give Up On You.”

West says the truth is simpler: Recent British entries just haven’t been very good.

“Bloc voting won’t make a rubbish song win,” he said. “I think a song’s got to be decent in order to win.

“It’ll be helped by bloc voting, and that is a problem for Britain because we don’t really have a bloc. But I think if Adele or Ed Sheeran entered the competition they could still win it.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

China’s President Xi Jinping initiated the ambitious Belt and Road development plan but it has become a world plan not tied to his presidency, the Commerce Ministry said Wednesday, days before Xi hosts a global forum on the initiative.

The forum in Beijing next week will draw heads of state to discuss Xi’s plan to expand trade links between Asia, Africa and Europe through billions of dollars in infrastructure investment.

Representatives from more than 100 countries will attend China’s biggest diplomatic event of the year, though only one leader from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, is set to join.

China says that between 2014 and 2016, its businesses signed projects worth $304.9 billion along inland and maritime corridors of the plan, also known as the New Silk Road. But some of the projects could be in development for years.

Judging by recent precedent in China’s political system, Xi is slated to step down from the presidency in early 2023 at the end of his second five-year term.

Asked what guarantee the world had that the initiative would go on after Xi’s second term, Vice Minister of Commerce Qian Keming told a news briefing that its vitality lay in countries’ hopes for development and not in the idea of “who proposed it or what term in office there is later.”

“The Belt and Road initiative was proposed by President Xi in 2013, but this initiative is not an individual proposal, or merely left at a proposal level. Rather it is an initiative that has been widely received by the whole world. It is jointly owned by everyone,” Qian said.

China has repeatedly rebuffed concern that the plan is part of a grand strategy to expand its economic interests for selfish gain and to seek global dominance, saying that anyone can join the plan to boost common prosperity.

Xi has used the initiative to help portray China as an open economy, distinct from a rising wave of global protectionism.

However, the government has faced criticism from foreign business groups and governments alike, who say it has done little to remove discriminatory policies and market barriers that favor Chinese companies.

Foreign business groups have questioned whether multinational companies would be able to compete with Chinese firms through the plan in transparent bidding processes.

Zhang Xingfu, an official from the Commerce Ministry’s cooperation department, played down such concerns.

“Chinese enterprises conducting investment and cooperative business in countries along the Belt and Road initiative will … actively participate in project bidding, and cooperate and compete with international enterprises in the same industries on the same platform,” Zhang said.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Electric carmaker Tesla has added another product to its lineup: Solar roof tiles.

As of Wednesday, customers worldwide could order a solar roof on Tesla’s website. Installations will begin next month in the U.S., starting with California. Installations outside the U.S. will begin next year, the company said.

The glass tiles were unveiled by Tesla last fall just before the company merged with solar panel maker SolarCity Corp. They’re designed to look like a traditional roof, with options that replicate slate or terracotta tiles. The solar tiles contain photovoltaic cells that are invisible from the street.

Guaranteed for life of home

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said one of the drawbacks to home solar installations has been the solar panels themselves: They’re often awkward, shiny and ugly. Buyers will want Tesla’s roof, he said, because it looks as good or better than a normal roof.

“When you have this installed on your house, you’ll have the best roof in the neighborhood. The aesthetics are that good,” Musk said in a conference call with media.

The roof is guaranteed for the life of the home, which is longer than the 20-year lifespan for a typical, nonsolar roof, Musk said. It has gone through the same hail, fire and wind testing that normal roofs endure.

Tesla’s website includes a calculator where potential buyers can estimate the cost of a solar roof based on the size of their home, the amount of sunlight their neighborhood receives and federal tax credits. They can also put down a refundable $1,000 deposit to reserve a place in line.

$42 per square foot

Tesla said the solar tiles cost $42 per square foot to install, making them far more costly than slate, which costs around $17 per square foot, or asphalt, which costs around $5. But homes would only need between 30 and 40 percent of their roof tiles to be solar; the rest would be Tesla’s cheaper nonsolar tiles, which would blend in with the solar ones.

It would cost $69,100 to install a solar roof with 40-percent solar tiles on a 2,600-square-foot roof in suburban Detroit, according to Tesla’s website. That includes a $7,000 Tesla Powerwall, a battery unit that stores the energy from the solar panels and powers the home. The roof would be eligible for a $15,500 federal tax credit and would generate an estimated $62,100 in electricity over 30 years. Over that time period, Tesla estimates, the homeowner would save $8,500.

Tesla said the typical homeowner can expect to pay $21.85 per square foot for a Tesla solar roof. The cost can be rolled into the homeowner’s mortgage payments and paid for over time, the company said.

Sales to be slow at first

Musk wouldn’t say how many orders the company expects to get this year. He expects the initial ramp-up to be slow.

“It will be very difficult and it will take a long time, and there will be some stumbles along the way. But it’s the only sensible vision of the future,” Musk said.

Palo Alto, California-based Tesla Inc. is making the solar tiles at its Fremont, California, factory initially. But eventually all production will move to a joint Tesla and Panasonic Corp. factory in Buffalo, New York. Panasonic makes the photovoltaic cells used in the solar tiles.

Tesla said it would be installing equipment in the Buffalo factory over the next few months.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Earlier this year, engineers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. who track rivals’ prices online got a rude surprise: the technology they were using to check Amazon.com several million times a day suddenly stopped working.

Losing access to Amazon.com Inc.’s data was no small matter. Like most big retailers, Wal-Mart relies on computer programs that scan prices on competitors’ websites so it can adjust its listings accordingly. A difference of even 50 cents can mean losing a sale.

But a new tactic by Amazon to block these programs — known commonly as robots or bots — thwarted the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer.

Its technology unit, @WalmartLabs, was unable to work around the blockade for weeks, forcing it to retrieve Amazon’s data through a secondary source, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The previously unreported incident offers a case study in how Amazon’s technological prowess is helping it dominate the retail competition.

Now the largest online retailer in the world, Amazon is best known by consumers for its fast delivery, huge product catalog and ambitious moves into areas like original TV programming. But its mastery of the complex, behind-the-scenes technologies that power modern e-commerce is just as important to its success.

Dexterity with bots allows Amazon not only to see what its rivals are doing, but increasingly to keep them in the dark when it undercuts them on price or is quietly charging more.

“Benchmarking against Amazon is going to become hard,” said Guru Hariharan, a former Amazon manager who now sells pricing software to retailers as chief executive of Mountain View, California-based Boomerang Commerce.

A Wal-Mart spokesman declined to discuss the January episode but said the company improves its technology regularly and has multiple tools for tracking items. He said the company offers value not only through pricing but from discounts for in-store pickup and other benefits.

A spokeswoman for Amazon said the company is aware of competitors using bots to check its listings and denied any “campaign” to stop them. “Nothing has changed recently in how we manage bots on our site,” she said. Still, she said, “we prioritize humans over bots as needed.”

Bots can slow down a website, a big motivator for retailers to block them.

Reuters interviewed 21 people familiar with bots and how they are deployed, including current and former Wal-Mart employees, former Amazon employees and outside specialists. Many spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issues publicly.

Most pointed to Amazon’s leadership in the burgeoning bot wars.

The company’s technological edge has been good for its profit margin, and it’s proving a winning formula for investors.

Shares of the internet powerhouse have risen about 15-fold since the market’s bottom in March 2009, while the S&P 500 has more than tripled in value. Amazon hit $100 billion in annual sales in 2015 — faster than any company in history, it said.

Brave new world

Bot-driven pricing has represented a massive change for the retail industry since Amazon helped pioneer the practice more than a decade ago.

Traditionally, brick-and-mortar stores changed prices no more than weekly because of the time and expense needed to swap labels by hand.

In the world of e-commerce, though, retailers update prices with ease, sometimes multiple times a day, helped by algorithms that consider inventory levels, sales forecasts and rivals’ pricing data.

To stay in the game, companies such as online wholesaler Boxed, based in New York, depend on a variety of methods including bots to ensure they do not lag others’ price moves for even 20 minutes.

“That’s like a lifetime during Christmas,” said Chief Executive Chieh Huang, whose company sells bulk staples like toilet paper and pet food. “If we’re not decently priced, we’ll see it almost immediately” in sales declines.

Disguised as humans

Using bots to view massive amounts of data on public websites — a process known as crawling or scraping — has many purposes. Alphabet Inc.’s Google, for example, constantly crawls the Web to gather information for its search engine results and to sell ads.

In e-commerce, though, the use of bots has developed into a cat-and-mouse game. Companies try to thwart the practice on their own websites while aiming to penetrate their competitors’ defenses. Third-party services abound to help less-savvy retailers.

To protect data from rivals, some retail websites use what’s known as a “CAPTCHA” — typically a distorted string of letters and numbers that humans can read but most bots can’t. Amazon shies away from the practice because it annoys some customers.

For merchants seeking to evade such defenses, disguising their computer programs as real shoppers is key. Some pricing technology experts have programmed computer cursors to meander through a Web page in the way a person might, instead of going directly to the prized data. Another technique is to use multiple computer addresses so that retailers cannot track a barrage of clicks to a single source.

“It is an arms race,” said Keith Anderson, a senior vice president at e-commerce analytics firm Profitero, based in Ireland. “Every week or every month, there’s some new approach from both sides.”

Amazon’s maneuver that halted Wal-Mart in January took aim at a specialized Web browser called PhantomJS. Unlike, say, Internet Explorer, this browser is designed specifically for programmers — a telltale clue that its users are not typical shoppers. Amazon put up a digital curtain to hide its listings from PhantomJS users, according to three people familiar with the situation.

It was unclear how the move, which was not aimed at Wal-Mart in particular, affected other companies.

Tests conducted in recent weeks for Reuters show that among major U.S. retail chains, Amazon had by far the most sophisticated bot detection in place, both for its home page and for two popular items selected by Reuters because they change price frequently — a De’Longhi coffee maker and a Logitech webcam.

The tests were run by San Francisco-based Distil Networks, which sells anti-bot tools. In one of the tests, Distil programmed bots to hit each retailer’s website 3,000 times, but slowly enough to mimic a person clicking through listings. This tricked most retail behemoths, but not Amazon.

Blocked bots would not have seen, for instance, that Amazon’s price for the De’Longhi espresso machine changed four times in a single 24-hour period starting on the morning of April 25, according to price tracking website camelcamelcamel.com. During that time, the price swung by more than 10 percent, from a low of $80.06 to $88.16.

Swarming with bots

Despite Amazon’s capabilities, the sheer volume of crawling on its site is staggering. At times, as many as 80 percent of the clicks on Amazon product listings have been from bots, people familiar with the matter say, compared with just a third or more of the traffic on other large sites.

In addition to rivals seeking price data, that traffic includes bots from university researchers studying competition, search engines, advertising services and even fraudsters trying to break into Amazon accounts.

For Wal-Mart, a small group in Silicon Valley directs its automated pricing strategy while dozens of engineers in India and around the world handle the code, current and former Wal-Mart employees said.

Amazon had about 40 engineers who would covertly extract and organize rivals’ data with bots as of several years ago, one of the people interviewed said. Amazon did not discuss the size or structure of its teams working with bots.

According to one U.S. patent application, Amazon is working on encryption technology that would force bots, but not humans, to solve a complicated algorithm to gain access to its Web pages.

“Amazon has both the competency to detect bot traffic and the wherewithal to do something about it,” said Scott Jacobson, a former Amazon manager and now managing director of Madrona Venture Group. That “isn’t the case for most retailers.”

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

Modern history. Political change. Urbanization, emotion, and the colors of Washington, DC. For Ukrainian-born photographer Val Proudkii, it’s all filtered through the lens of his camera. In his repertoire: numerous photography competition awards and one printed image signed by former president Barack Obama. After spending a day looking at the nation’s capital through his eyes, VOA’s Iuliia Iarmolenko and Dmytro Savchuk have more.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Pressure is mounting on the U.S. administration to remain committed to the Paris agreement on climate change. European Union leaders, a former United Nations chief and former U.S. President Barack Obama have joined the chorus of voices emphasizing the need for action to reduce greenhouse emissions worldwide. On Tuesday, the White House announced that President Trump is postponing his decision regarding the climate treaty for the second time. Zlatica Hoke has more.
…

From: MeNeedIt

New York University researchers have developed a system combining virtual reality with a pressure sensing mat they say could help people with vestibular dysfunction, which affects parts of the inner ear and brain and results in problems with balance, or those suffering from vertigo or dizziness as a result of a brain injury. Faith Lapidus reports.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Jimmy Kimmel zinged his critics as he returned to late-night TV and resumed arguing that Americans deserve the level of health care given his infant son.

Back on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Monday after a week’s absence, he said baby Billy is recovering well from open-heart surgery for a birth defect and thanked well-wishers. Then he charged back into the fraught topic.

“I made an emotional speech that was seen by millions, and as a result of my powerful words on that night, Republicans in Congress had second thoughts about repeal and replace” of the Affordable Care Act, he joked. “I saved health insurance in the United States of America!”

“What’s that? I didn’t save it? They voted against it anyway?” Kimmel said. The House approved the American Health Care Act last week.

He dismissed those who labeled him an elitist — as a youngster, his family bought powered milk because they couldn’t afford fresh, he said — and pretended to repent for his previous comments.

“I’d like to apologize for saying that children in America should have health care. It was insensitive, it was offensive, and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me,” Kimmel said.

He took on former Rep. Newt Gingrich, saying his claim that all children would receive the same surgery as Kimmel’s son in an emergency fell short of addressing what follows.

“That’s terrific if your baby’s health problems are all solved during that one visit. The only problem is that never, ever happens. We’ve had a dozen doctor’s appointments since our son had surgery,” Kimmel said.

Kimmel brought on a current GOP lawmaker, U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician, who had suggested that the Senate’s upcoming health care legislation should have a “Jimmy Kimmel test” of covering pre-existing conditions but in a fiscally conservative way.

During a satellite interview with Cassidy, Kimmel asked about his position on issues including uninsured workers and protection of children under a revised health care bill.

The senator called on viewers to contact their representatives and urge support of final legislation that fulfills President Donald Trump’s promise to lower premiums combined with coverage that passes the Kimmel standard.

Kimmel called for his namesake test to guarantee that no family be denied medical care, emergency or otherwise, because they can’t afford it.

“You’re on the right track,” Cassidy said, but the country has to be able to pay for it.

“Don’t give a huge tax cut to millionaires like me,” Kimmel replied.

On last Monday’s show, the host detailed how Billy’s routine birth April 21 suddenly turned frightening when he was diagnosed with a hole in the wall separating the right and left sides of the heart and a blocked pulmonary valve, a condition known as tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia. He successfully underwent surgery, but will face more as he grows.

Using his son as an example, Kimmel called for health care for all and for pre-existing conditions to remain covered as provided by the Affordable Care Act passed under President Barack Obama.

“If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make. … Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right?” he said.

The video of Kimmel’s tearful monologue went viral, drawing praised by some, including Obama, and harsh criticism from others.
…

From: MeNeedIt