Federal autonomous vehicle regulations and policies released

A long-awaited set of federal rules and regulations was released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Tuesday. In the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy, the U.S. Department of Transportation “sets the framework for the next 50 years with guidance for the safe and rapid deployment of advanced automated vehicle safety technologies.”
While stressing the primary importance of safety as autonomous vehicle technologies develop, the policy speaks to the potential of improving lives in several vital respects. In addition to improvements in mobility, energy savings, and reduced pollution, the most important potential benefit of the advanced technologies will be in saved lives. The NHTSA cites the oft-quoted figure that 94 percent of highway crashes are due to human error and result in more than 30,000 traffic fatalities each year.

We do not intend to write the final word on highly automated vehicles here.

U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Anthony Foxx sets the tone of the new policy in his introductory statement. “As the Department charged with protecting the traveling public, we recognize three realities that necessitate this guidance. First, the rise of new technology is inevitable. Second, we will achieve more significant safety improvements by establishing an approach that translates our knowledge and aspirations into early guidance. Third, as this area evolves, the “unknowns” of today will become “knowns” tomorrow. We do not intend to write the final word on highly automated vehicles here. Rather, we intend to establish a foundation and a framework upon which future Agency action will occur.”
The Policy has four major sections: Vehicle Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles; Model State Policy; NHTSA’s Current Regulatory Tools; and Modern Regulatory Tools. The primary focus is on what the DoT calls “highly automated vehicles” (HAVs), which it further defines as “those in which the vehicle can take full control of the driving task in at least some circumstances.” Parts of the policy also apply to driver assistance technologies including those currently in use.
The Vehicle Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles outlines a 15-point “Safety Assessment” for design, development, testing and deployment of autonomous vehicles. The safety assessment will be — at least at first — a voluntary assessment of any new highly automated technology. The assessment will be completed by manufacturers and other entities such as component suppliers. It will document whether they are meeting or complying with 15 factors or areas. For each factor, the assessment will state that the technology meets the guidance, does not meet the guidance, or that the guidance area isn’t applicable.
It’s a long list, but the fifteen guidance areas in the assessment include data recording and sharing; privacy; system safety; vehicle cybersecurity; human-machine interface; crashworthiness; consumer education and training; registration and certification; post-crash behavior; federal, state, and local laws; ethical considerations; operational design domain; object and event detection and response; fall back (minimal risk condition); and validation methods. The DOT and NHTSA will review and update the guidance areas annually.
The Model State Policy delineates federal and state responsibilities. The goal is to have a consistent state-to-state framework for testing and deploying vehicles to ensure that as people travel around the nation they will be assured that vehicle technologies and safety factors are the same.
To further explain, while driver licensing and vehicle registration are state responsibilities, setting new vehicle safety standards for motor vehicles and enforcing compliance with safety standards are federal responsibilities.
The Current Regulatory Tools section outlines the Department of Transportation’s existing regulations and policies that can aid safe and timely development of HAVs. Modern Regulatory Tools looks to the future to identify potential ways to accelerate safe deployment of new technologies.
The purpose of the Federal Automated Vehicle Policy is to support the advance of highly automated vehicles while protecting public safety. The policy will be reviewed and updated annually. The DOT is open to public comment on the policy at this website.

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MIT scientists use radio waves to sense human emotions

There's a new trick to understanding someone's poker face -- radio waves.

Researchers at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a device that uses radio waves to detect whether someone is happy, sad, angry or excited.

The breakthrough makes it easier to accomplish what scientists have tried to do for years with machines: sense human emotions. The researchers believe tracking a person's feelings is a step toward improving their overall emotional well-being.

The technology isn't invasive; it works in the background without a person having to do anything, like wearing a device. The device called EQ-Radio, which was detailed in a paper published online Tuesday, resembles a shoebox, as of now. In the future, it may shrink down and integrate with an existing computing gadget in your home.
It works by bouncing wireless signals off a person. These signals are impacted by motion, such as breathing and heartbeats. When the heart pumps blood, a force is exerted onto our bodies, and the skin vibrates ever so slightly.

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After the radio waves are impacted by these vibrations, they return to the device. A computer then analyzes the signals to identify changes in heartbeat and breathing.
The researchers demonstrated their system detects emotions on par with an electrocardiogram (EKG), a common wearable device medical professionals use to monitor the human heart.
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The machine's analysis of the radio waves relies on artificial intelligence, which learns how various heartbeats indicate certain emotions.
As a part of the testing, the machine bounced radio waves off actors who recreated a range of emotions. The more emotions the machine experienced, the better it identified what signals, such as a fast heartbeat, gave away their true feelings. By monitoring radio waves reflected off people who are happy, the machine is exposed to certain signs -- such as heart rate or a type of breathing -- associated with being in good spirits.
The machine is aware of the number of milliseconds between each heartbeat due to the radio waves. It's these subtle changes in our bodies that give away our emotional state.
MIT professor Dina Katabi, who led the project, believes the work could have significant impact on emotional well-being.
"Imagine if the machines around you can understand when you are stressed or your emotional state is negative," Katabi said. "[It could] try to detect depression."
As Katabi sees it, a device at home could one day email you if it notices you've been sad for awhile. It might suggest you spend more time with friends and family.
There's growing interest among researchers about how machines are qualified to understand our health. Earlier this year, Harvard and University of Vermont researchers found Instagram photos could be analyzed to detect depression. Meanwhile, Microsoft researchers have used web search data to help identify serious illnesses in their development stages.
The MIT device could also be useful for businesses looking to get a better sense of customer emotions. For example, an entertainment company may gauge people's feelings during test screenings of movies and shows.
However, the nature of such a device raises privacy concerns. A device like the EQ-Radio could be placed in a public or private space, and those present may not be aware (or want) information about their emotions is being collected.
In response, Katabi said her team would only use the technology where it had users' consent.
As for now, it's unknown when MIT's device could be used in the real world.

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Why VR matters, especially in rural schools

All children benefit from new experiences which expand their mental map of the world, but the need is especially acute for children from low-income families.

While they may have rich life experiences in their own communities, Harvard professor Robert Putnam in an NPR interview distilled his copious research: “The bottom line of all of the statistics […] is that poor kids are increasingly isolated.”

One of the most promising applications of technology in our public schools is the use of technology to transcend the physical classroom and combat this growing isolation.

Contrary to popular belief, most edtech is not foisted upon our schools from above as it was in decades past, but rather, classroom teachers are pulling it in — especially by those whose students are increasingly left behind by a global economy that favors the connected, the computer literate and the experienced.
The word experience is derived from the latin “experientia” meaning to try, to test. Watch a toddler for five minutes to see that childhood is about trying and testing the world around us. It starts in the home as children explore their kitchen cabinets, testing which pots and pans make the loudest noise.
As they grow older, children explore their neighborhoods and begin to try out new sports and activities. We know from Sean Reardon’s research that the richness and frequency of these experiences is correlated to a family’s income level.
Children from affluent homes get many more chances to try new sports, to explore their interests at science or art camp, to travel beyond their community and importantly, to take more risk. Affluent families spend triple the amount of money on enrichment goods and services for their children.
Naysayers tweeting on social media will complain that a virtual reality field trip to Egypt is no substitute for strolling Cairo’s markets, smelling the spices or touching the Great Pyramids, and they are right. But right now, most children are learning about Egypt from an outdated and expensive textbook.
There’s a world of difference between three lines of printed text on a page and virtual exploration of King Tut’s tomb. The potential to ignite curiosity and encourage discovery multiplies tenfold with a virtual reality field trip. These rich experiences become the fertile ground for teachers to nurture the learning that comes after.
One tool in high demand is Nepris, which connects professionals to classrooms for real-time conversations. In the words of teacher Kelly Margot from Royse City, Texas (population 10,000):

I really think the great equalizer for equity with children is experiences. Experiences bridge that gap to give them opportunities to know what is out there. Yesterday, my students were able to talk to a brain expert in New York. Today, a student came in fired up about his next research idea over “Cures for Neurological Issues”. The expert told the kids what happens in the brain that causes autism. This kid wants to know what is being done to fix it.

Nepris is especially popular in rural areas where exposure to jobs is limited. For example, the Nepris platform enables a teacher in rural Arkansas to quickly connect her classroom to a computer science engineer in Waterloo Canada by posting a request on LinkedIn. The process is fast and frictionless.
While dreams and ambition are bountiful across socio-economic classes, experience and opportunity are not.
New technologies like Nepris and our portfolio company Nearpod can begin to broaden our experiences and improve our connectedness.
We can imagine a time in the not-to-distant future when technology will enable our children to walk in the shoes of a child with Down Syndrome or spend a day as a Muslim 9th grader. I don’t know how far off that future is but if we tread carefully forward, technology can be a powerful tool for educational equity.

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China Confirms Its Space Station Is Falling Back to Earth

Chinese officials appear to have confirmed what many observers have long suspected: that China is no longer in control of its space station.

China's Tiangong-1 space station has been orbiting the planet for about 5 years now, but recently it was decommissioned and the Chinese astronauts returned to the surface. In a press conference last week, China announced that the space station would be falling back to earth at some point in late 2017.

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Normally, a decommissioned satellite or space station would be retired by forcing it to burn up in the atmosphere. This type of burn is controlled, and most satellite re-entries are scheduled to burn up over the ocean to avoid endangering people. However, it seems that China's space agency is not sure exactly when Tiangong-1 will re-enter the atmosphere, which implies that the station has been damaged somehow and China is no longer able to control it.

This is important because it means Tiangong-1 won't be able to burn up in a controlled manner. All we know is it will burn up at some point in late 2017, but it is impossible to predict exactly when or where. This means that there is a chance debris from the falling spacecraft could strike a populated area.

Fortunately, it's unlikely anyone will be injured. Most of the parts of the space station will burn up in the atmosphere, and the few that do make it to the ground probably won't land in any populated areas. (It's a big planet.) Still, watch the skies late next year. You never know what could be falling down on you.

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