Archives for December 2018

  At a time when pressure is mounting on tech companies to utilise facial recognition technology with care to avoid its misuse, Google has said it will not offer the controversial technology for now.

Toeing Microsoft’s line which has asked governments across the world to regulate this technology, Google said facial recognition merits careful consideration. 

“Like many technologies with multiple uses, facial recognition merits careful consideration to ensure its use is aligned with our principles and values, and avoids abuse and harmful outcomes,” Kent Walker, Senior Vice President of Global Affairs at Google, said in a blog post on Friday. 

“We continue to work with many organisations to identify and address these challenges, and unlike some other companies, Google Cloud has chosen not to offer general-purpose facial recognition APIs before working through important technology and policy questions,” informed Walker.

Earlier this month, Microsoft President Brad Smith said that given the potential for abuse of the fast advancing facial recognition technology, governments across the world need to start adopting laws to regulate this technology in 2019.

“Unless we act, we risk waking up five years from now to find that facial recognition services have spread in ways that exacerbate societal issues,” warned Smith in a blog post.

“The time for action has arrived,” he said, adding that the industry must also exercise restraint while using this technology.

Microsoft is one of several companies playing a leading role in developing facial recognition technology. 

The company, Smith said, would start adopting new principles to manage the issues surrounding facial recognition technology in the first quarter of 2019.

According to Walker, Google has long been committed to the responsible development of AI. 

“These principles guide our decisions on what types of features to build and research to pursue. As one example, facial recognition technology has benefits in areas like new assistive technologies and tools to help find missing persons, with more promising applications on the horizon,” he added. 

IANS

 In a no-holds-barred assault, the Shiv Sena here on Saturday termed the appointment of new Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das as “dangerous” with a potential to unleash ‘financial terror’ in the country.

“The (BJP) government does not like people who speak the truth, but wants only those who ‘nod their head in agreement’. If this is the intention behind Das’ appointment, it signals the beginning of a ‘financial terror’ regime,” warned the Sena, an ally of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the Centre and in Maharashtra.

Questioning Das’ credentials for the crucial post, the Sena said while the two previous RBI governors – Raghuram Rajan and Urjit Patel – were world-renowned economists, the current incumbent is only a graduate with no “known” knowledge of economics, and is an IAS officer (bureaucrat) with specialisation in history.

“He is known to applaud all good and bad policies of the Narendra Modi government. In fact, he had blindly supported the devastating demonetisation drive (November 2016), and remained unaffected by the peoples’ miseries then. When doubts were raised on the new pink-coloured Rs 2,000 currency notes, he made a laughable statement that those notes which bleed are genuine,” the Sena said in hard-hitting edits in the party mouthpieces, ‘Saamana’ and ‘Dopahar Ka Saamana.’

It pointed out that the post of governor of the country’s apex bank is “akin to sitting on a throne of nails and wearing a crown of thorns”, and hence Das’ top priority is to “safeguard the independence” of RBI besides convincing global investors of the same.

“Rajan had strongly opposed the demonetisation move and quit. Patel sacrificed his post to protect the RBI’s independence and even prevented the government from raiding its reserves. The current economic chaos witnessed in the country is directly because of flawed policies like note ban and GST implementation, resulting in high inflation and falling Rupee value,” said the Sena.

Though it was within the ambit of the RBI to arrest all these ills, it did not happen in the past four years, as there was massive interference in the apex bank’s affairs.

It was only when these hindrances became unbearable that Rajan and Patel left, while a “tolerant” person like Das has been anointed as RBI Governor, the Sena pointed out.

Citing an example, the Sena said that the RBI has imposed severe lending restrictions on 11 banks, but the government feels if these are eased then these banks could thrive again.

Opposing the government’s view, the RBI’s stance is that industrialists and big borrowers failed to repay their debts and fled the country – actions which hit the economy badly and will continue to do so.

BJP MP Subramanian Swamy made serious written allegations against Das in the past, but despite that, he has been catapulted to the top post as RBI Governor, the Sena rued.

“Das enjoys good relations with politicians, but his appointment as RBI head should not lead to any manipulation of the economy and end up as a ‘joke’… Here, he faces crucial questions like inflation and fiscal management. As the RBI Governor, will he be able to rein in the political elements who created the problems in the first place?” the Sena asked in the concluding part of the edits.

IANS

 International regulations limiting sulfur in fuels for ocean-going vessels will increase uncertainty for crude oil and petroleum product price formation in both the short and long term, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.

These rules, set to take effect in January 2020, apply across multiple countries’ jurisdictions to fuels used in the open ocean, Xinhua news agency reported.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO), the 171-member state United Nations agency that sets standards for shipping, decided to reduce the maximum amount of sulfur content in marine fuels used on the open seas from 3.5 percent to 0.5 percent by 2020. These regulations are intended to reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants from global ship exhaust.

On Friday, EIA said that the upcoming IMO regulations pose a significant challenge for global petroleum refineries, which will have to figure out how to increase the supply of low sulfur products for use in marine applications and minimize the output of high sulfur oils.

EIA said that one approach refineries could pursue is to divert more low sulfur distillate fuel into the bunker fuel market. This means that ocean-going ships would be competing with trucks, heavy equipment, trains and planes for supplies of distillate fuels at a time when global demand for distillate is already high. To respond to extra demand for distillate fuels, refineries can increase the rate they process crude oil or invest and build more refinery capacity to produce distillate fuels. 

Refineries could also process crude oils that are lower in sulfur and yield a greater amount of distillates and lower amounts of residual oils, which currently make up the largest component of marine fuels used by large ocean-going vessels. 

Vessel operators also have several choices to comply with the new sulfur limits. One option is to switch to a lower-sulfur fuel compliant with the new rules. Another option is to utilize scrubbers to remove pollutants from ships’ exhaust, allowing them to continue to use higher-sulfur fuels. Ships have the option to switch to nonpetroleum-based fuels as well. 

The decisions refiners and shippers make in response to the IMO regulations heavily influence one another, adding to uncertainty and complexity, according to EIA. 

When burned, the sulfur in marine fuel produces sulfur dioxide, a precursor to acid rain. The sulfur content of transportation fuels has been declining for many years because of increasingly strict regulations implemented by individual countries or groups of countries.