September 16, 2017
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Apple iPhone X Hands on The future of smartphone. P.7 Self-driving boats. P.1 NY Tech School P.6
ABOUT THE COVER IPhone X Hands-on: Apple’s new smartphone both copies and innovates.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Self-driving boats
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China’s Bitcoin
5 US SelfDriving Cars
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11 Gallery of New Technology of 2017
Apple iPhone X
10 Asian Businesses
20 Equifax Hack
impressum
WRITERS Precise English Inc. Benjamin Kerry (UK) Gavin Lenaghan (UK) Craig Lenaghan (UK) Elena Lusk (US)
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concept boat designed by Rolls-Royce
SELF DRIVING BOATS: THE NEXT TECH TRANSPORTATION RACE UNMANNED VESSEL
Self-driving cars may not hit the road in earnest for many years - but autonomous boats could be just around the pier. Spurred in part by the car industry’s race to build driverless vehicles, marine innovators are building automated ferry boats for Amsterdam canals, cargo ships that can steer themselves through Norwegian fjords and remote-controlled ships to carry containers across the Atlantic and Pacific. The first such autonomous ships could be in operation within three years.
SELF-DRIVING BOATS
One experimental workboat spent this summer dodging tall ships and tankers in Boston Harbor, outfitted with sensors and self-navigating software and emblazoned with the words “UNMANNED VESSEL” across its aluminum hull. “We’re in full autonomy now,” said Jeff Gawrys, a marine technician for Boston startup Sea Machines Robotics, sitting at the helm as the boat floated through a harbor channel.
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“Roger that,” said computer scientist Mohamed Saad Ibn Seddik, as he helped to guide the ship from his laptop on a nearby dock. The boat still needs human oversight. But some of the world’s biggest maritime firms have committed to designing ships that won’t need any captains or crews - at least not on board.
DISTRACTED SEAFARING
The ocean is “a wide open space,” said Sea Machines CEO Michael Johnson. Based out of an East Boston shipyard once used to build powerful wooden clippers, the cutting-edge sailing vessels of the 19th century, his company is hoping to spark a new era of commercial marine innovation that could surpass the development of self-driving cars and trucks. The startup has signed a deal with an undisclosed company to install the “world’s first autonomy system on a commercial containership,” Johnson said this week. It will be remotelycontrolled from land as it travels the
GLOBAL RACE
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Militaries have been working on unmanned vessels for decades. But a lot of commercial experimentation is happening in the centuries-old seaports of Scandinavia, where Rolls-Royce demonstrated a remotecontrolled tugboat in Copenhagen this year. Government-sanctioned testing areas have been established in Norway’s Trondheim Fjord and along Finland’s western coast.
The ocean is “a wide open space,” said Sea Machines CEO Michael Johnson. North Atlantic. He also plans to sell the technology to companies doing oil spill cleanups and other difficult work on the water, aiming to assist maritime crews, not replace them. Johnson, a marine engineer whose previous job took him to the Italian coast to help salvage the sunken cruise ship Costa Concordia, said that deadly 2012 capsizing and other marine disasters have convinced him that “we’re relying too much on old-world technology.” “Humans get distracted, humans get tired,” he said.
In Norway, fertilizer company Yara International is working with engineering firm Kongsberg Maritime on a project to replace big-rig trucks with an electric-powered ship connecting three nearby ports. The pilot ship is scheduled to launch next year, shift to remote control in 2019 and go fully autonomous by 2020. “It would remove a lot of trucks from the roads in these small communities,” said Kongsberg CEO Geir Haoy.
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Japanese shipping firm Nippon Yusen K.K. - operator of the cargo ship that slammed into a U.S. Navy destroyer in a deadly June collision - plans to test its first remote-controlled vessel in 2019, part of a wider Japanese effort to deploy hundreds of autonomous container ships by 2025. A Chinese alliance has set a goal of launching its first self-navigating cargo ship in 2021.
CARS VS. BOATS
The key principles of self-driving cars and boats are similar. Both scan their surroundings using a variety of sensors, feed the information into an artificial intelligence system and output driving instructions to the vehicle. But boat navigation could be much easier than car navigation, said Carlo Ratti, an MIT professor working with Dutch universities to launch selfnavigating vessels in Amsterdam next year. The city’s canals, for instance, have no pedestrians or bikers cluttering the way, and are subject to strict speed limits.
ARMCHAIR CAPTAINS
Researchers have already begun to design merchant ships that will be made more efficient because they don’t need room for seamen to sleep and eat. But in the near future, most of these ships will be only partly autonomous. Armchair captains in a remote operation center could be monitoring several ships at a time, sitting in a room with 360-degree virtual reality views. When the vessels are on the open seas, they might not need
SELF-DRIVING BOATS
Researchers have already begun to design merchant ships that will be made more efficient because they don’t need room for seamen to sleep and eat.
Ratti’s project is also looking at ways small vessels could coordinate with each other in “swarms.” They could, for instance, start as a fleet of passenger or delivery boats, then transform into an on-demand floating bridge to accommodate a surge of pedestrians. Since many boats already have electronic controls, “it would be easy to make them self-navigating by simply adding a small suite of sensors and AI,” Ratti said.
humans to make decisions. It’s just the latest step in what has been a gradual automation of maritime tasks. “If you go back 150 years, you had more than 200 people on a cargo vessel. Now you have between 10 and 20,” said Oskar Levander, vice president of innovation for Rolls-Royce’s marine business.
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There are still some major challenges ahead. Uncrewed vessels might be more vulnerable to piracy or even outright theft via remote hacking of a ship’s control systems. Some autonomous vessels might win public trust faster than others; unmanned container ships filled with bananas might not raise the same concerns as oil tankers plying the waters near big cities or protected wilderness.
A decades-old international maritime safety treaty also requires that “all ships shall be sufficiently and efficiently manned.” But The International Maritime Organization, which regulates shipping, has begun a 2-year review of the safety, security and environmental implications of autonomous ships.
Superyacht SC166 - Strand Craft 166 Motor Yacht by Gray Design
CHANGING RULES OF THE SEA
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Asian Businesses Mull Tech Solutions to Fight Modern Slavery by Lise Berda
Asia Pacific business leaders are working on recommendations to protect migrant workers from modern day slavery and to ensure companies’ supply sources are free from such unethical employment, according to Australia’s ambassador for people smuggling and human trafficking. One idea might be to create a regional websitethat rates employment recruiters - something already being done in Vietnam, Andrew Goledzinowski said. Another idea could be to designate a common telephone number as a regional hotline, similar to what the sportswear company Adidas provides to its factory workers in China and elsewhere. Goledzinowski suggested the ideas at a forum of officials and business leaders from 45 Indo-Pacific countries and territories known as the Bali Process that also aims at ensuring companies’ supply of materials are not tainted by unethical employment. Participants agreed at the meeting in Perth, Australia, to submit specific recommendations to governments next year. “We are hoping they will come up with the ecommendations for how to better manage the recruitment of migrant workers and the protection of migrant workers” he said in an interview Wednesday. He said the measures
ASIAN BUSINESSES
also aim “to manage supply chain transparency so that businesses are not just responsible for what happens in their business, but also who they buy from.” Migrant workers often end up dealing with recruiters they do not know, being charged high fees and having their passports taken when they reach their destination, Goledzinowski said. “And very quickly you are trafficked, in fact, you are in debt bondage,” he said, expressing hope that business leaders agree that “migrant workers should not have to pay for their own recruitment.” The recommendations will cover employment ethics, transparency standards and safeguards for victims and whistle-blowers. Some will be classed as minimum standards, and some as more ambitious targets. “There’s a lot that can be done which actually is quite easy but it only works if everyone does it,” Goledzinowski said. The Bali Process started in 2002 and includes representatives from the U.S., China, India, Japan, Afghanistan, North Korea and countries in Southeast Asia.
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iPHONE X HANDS-ON:
apple’s luxury iPhone both copies and innovates
Introducing the New iPhone X
by Gustavo Labanca Segolene Vincent Lise Berda
As soon as you see the iPhone X up close, you’ll realize that it’s nothing like any of the previous models that Apple has released during the past decade. But you might notice striking similarities with some of the sleek smartphones that Samsung, Google and others have been churning out during the past year or two. Like its rivals, Apple has finally gotten around to making a phone with an edge-to-edge display, a nod to consumers’ desire for more space to view their photos, watch movies and TV shows, read books and play games.
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photo by Caroline Veronilla
In that sense, Apple is playing a game of catchup with the iPhone X - a name that refers to the Roman numeral for “10.” But the device still manages to live up to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ mandate to “think different.”
Facial Recognition The iPhone X comes with what appears to be sophisticated facial recognition. On a basic level, that allows its owner to unlock the phone with a quick glance. But it also opens the door for a menagerie of emojis that can be controlled and manipulated with facial expressions and voice. The phone also provides a spectacular canvas for photos,
iPhone X: Hands on
thanks to a superior camera and a soupedup screen Apple calls a “Super Retina” display. It also costs almost $1,000, an unprecedented price for a mass market phone.
As soon as you see the iPhone X up close, you’ll realize that it’s nothing like any of the previous models that Apple has released during the past decade.
Price Specifications That price tag means that most Apple lovers will probably stick with the slightly less expensive iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, which will be available Sept. 22 - six weeks before the iPhone X hits the market. But the iPhone X will probably be a hot commodity among status seekers and affluent consumers. Such buyers won’t flinch at paying an extra $300 to own a phone with attractive but still mostly marginal improvements, based on about 20 minutes we spent with the phone in a controlled demo room Tuesday. One of the best things about the iPhone X: It has a larger screen, but isn’t more cumbersome to carry around. The iPhone X’s edge-toedge screen measures 5.8 inches diagonally compared to 5.5 inches for the iPhone
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Using the iPhone X will also require behavioral changes, such as swiping from the bottom to the home screen.
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7 Plus and now the iPhone 8 Plus. But the iPhone X’s overall dimensions are smaller than the Plus and just slightly larger than the regular models. That’s bound to appeal to people who like large screens but don’t like oversized phones. On the down side, the iPhone X’s screen isn’t as wide as that of the iPhone 7 Plus or iPhone 8 Plus. What really makes the iPhone X stand out is its new high-resolution display, coupled with its spiffy cameras. Photos viewed on the iPhone X look amazingly vivid and lifelike, right down to the visible blades of glass at a kid’s soccer game or every crease of a blanket blowing in the wind.
Featuring: Animoji Emojis have become such a popular way of communication in our smartphone-driven culture that the iPhone X’s “animoji” feature could prove popular as well.
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This animated feature draws upon the iPhone X’s facial recognition technology and high-end, frontfacing camera to enable people to control the expressions on a dozen different type of emojis.
changes, such as swiping from the bottom to get the home screen, now that the home button has disappeared. The new phone does add a button on the side to invoke the Siri virtual assistant and Apple Pay.
For instance, you can pull up a fox or a rabbit and it will frown or smile in sync with your own expression. The emoji figure will move its mouth when you do; record it and it will speak in your voice. (You can send such videos to friends.)
Security Issues Facial recognition is also the new convenient way to unlock the iPhone X. No more fingerprint scanner: the expansion of the display meant the loss of the home button, which housed that sensor. Apple says this change will allow iPhone X owners to unlock the device with a quick glance under just about any conditions. (The device also can be unlocked with a numeric passcode if facial recognition fails, as it did for one Apple executive during Tuesday’s presentation.)
Photos by Apple.com
But security might still be an issue, particularly if the iPhone X’s facial recognition can be tricked by intruders trying to break into a device designed for big spenders and luxury lovers. Apple says it turned to mask experts to test and improve the feature, though it acknowledges that twins might trick the phone. Using the iPhone X will also require behavioral
iPhone X: Hands on
As soon as you see the iPhone X up close, you’ll realize that it’s nothing like any of the previous models that Apple has released during the past decade.
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Reports: China Orders Bitcoin Exchanges to Shut Down by Segolene Vincent
Regulators have ordered Chinese bitcoin exchanges to close, two business newspapers reported Thursday, after uncertainty about the digital currency’s future in China caused its price to plunge. Regulators in Shanghai, the country’s financial center, gave verbal instructions to exchange operators to shut down, China Business News and 21st Century Economic Report said on their websites. They gave no other details. The central bank has yet to respond to questions about bitcoin’s future in China but earlier warned it was traded without regulatory oversight and might be linked to fraud. The bank banned initial offerings of new digital currencies last week. Bitcoin is created and exchanged without the involvement of banks or governments. Transactions allow anonymity, which has made bitcoin popular with people who want to conceal their activity. Bitcoin can be converted to cash when deposited into accounts at prices set in online trading. Rumors that China planned to ban bitcoin has caused its market price to tumble 20 percent since Sept. 8. Interest in China in bitcoin surged last year after the price rose. A Chinese business news magazine, Caixin, said at one point up to 90 percent of global trading took place in China. Trading volume has fallen as regulators tightened controls.
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