Category: Hot Issues

Impact Lab > Hot Issues
3D Printer, Big Problems, Hot Issues, Legal Issues

3D printed guns are now legal… What’s next?

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On Tuesday, July 10, the DOJ announced a landmark settlement with Austin-based Defense Distributed, a controversial startup led by a young, charismatic anarchist whom Wired once named one of the 15 most dangerous people in the world.

Hyper-loquacious and media-savvy, Cody Wilson is fond of telling any reporter who’ll listen that Defense Distributed’s main product, a gun fabricator called the Ghost Gunner, represents the endgame for gun control, not just in the US but everywhere in the world. With nothing but the Ghost Gunner, an internet connection, and some raw materials, anyone, anywhere can make an unmarked, untraceable gun in their home or garage. Even if Wilson is wrong that the gun control wars are effectively over (and I believe he is), Tuesday’s ruling has fundamentally changed them.

Continue reading… “3D printed guns are now legal… What’s next?”

Big Problems, government, Hot Issues, Human Behavior

What it costs to be smuggled across the U. S. border

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Bribes and shakedowns. Days in hideaways without food. For many fleeing violence in Central America, this is what thousands of dollars gets them on the journey to the United States.

MATAMOROS, Mexico — Shortly before dawn one Sunday last August, a driver in an S.U.V. picked up Christopher Cruz at a stash house in this border city near the Gulf of Mexico. The 22-year-old from El Salvador was glad to leave the one-story building, where smugglers kept bundles of cocaine and marijuana alongside their human cargo, but he was anxious about what lay ahead.

The driver deposited Mr. Cruz at an illegal crossing point on the edge of the Rio Grande. A smuggler took a smartphone photograph to confirm his identity and sent it using WhatsApp to a driver waiting to pick him up on the other side of the frontier when — if — he made it across.

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Health & Fitness, Hot Issues, Latest Trend, Legalized marijuana

CBD is changing the health industry

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CBD is legal, and has been taken off the WADA Prohibited Substances List.

In February 2008–ten years ago this past winter–Thomas Vanderham, a mainstay in freeride mountain biking, crashed badly in Utah while filming for The Collective’s third movie, “Seasons.” With most footage bagged for the spring release that year, his crew was trying to add on in the ninth hour. The crash put a stop to Vanderham’s expanded part–there wasn’t enough footage from the trip to put it in the film–and according to his doctors, it nearly put a stop to his riding, too.

Continue reading… “CBD is changing the health industry”

Big Problems, Healthcare, Hot Issues, Medicine

This is why Xanax is blowing up in America

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From the explosion of ADHD meds to the economic crisis to the Trump presidency, this dangerous trend didn’t come out of nowhere.

It’s not exactly breaking news that Xanax has been having something of a moment. Famous musicians, at least until prominent voices like Lil Xan (yes, even him!) and Chance the Rapper began swearing off the stuff, have long been inclined to hype it. And Xanny bars have been touted across social media and even in old-school graffiti for some time now. The number of adults prescribed drugs in the class that includes Xanax (alprazolam)—known as benzodiazepines—rose by 67 percent between 1996 and 2013. Over the same period, the amount of these drugs that was actually dispensed more than tripled, according to a 2016 study.

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Botnet, Hot Issues, Intelligence, Internet, Legal Issues, Science & Technology News

Are bots entitled to free speech?

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WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT BOTS. How will the courts address free-expression rights for artificially intelligent communicators? This conversation is coming, and it may push the Supreme Court to do something it has avoided: define who is and is not a journalist.

For nearly half a century, the US legal system has lived a double life. On the one hand, the Supreme Court has held that journalists do not have greater or lesser rights than other citizens (see Branzburg v. Hayes). On the other, the lower courts have generally ignored or let stand numerous laws or privileges that provide journalists special protections. These include the qualified First Amendment–based reporter’s privilege in some federal jurisdictions and fee waivers in FOI statutes.

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Business, Employment, Hot Issues, Robotics, Robots

Robot barista reveals dangerous rise of automation

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A $25,000 robot barista serves 120 cups of coffee an hour — and it is part of a growing ‘robot revolution’ that could kill millions of jobs .

“I don’t see the robot revolution as a problem,” 24-year-old inventor Henry Hu told CNBC.

More restaurants and coffee shops are investing in automation and replacing jobs with robot labor.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Big Problems, Futurist, Hot Issues, Machine Learning

Five myths about artificial intelligence

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Artificial intelligence is the future. Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple are all making big bets on AI. (Amazon owner Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post.) Congress has held hearings and even formed a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Caucus. From health care to transportation to national security, AI has the potential to improve lives. But it comes with fears about economic disruption and a brewing “AI arms race .” Like any transformational change, it’s complicated. Perhaps the biggest AI myth is that we can be confident about its future effects. Here are five others.

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AI, Amazon.com, Artificial Intelligence, Big Problems, Google, Hot Issues

Google exec issues warning over future of AI

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Google co-founder Sergey Brin sent the message in a letter to Alphabet shareholders (Source: Getty)

One of Google’s top execs and president of Alphabet Sergey Brin has raised concerns about the AI revolution in a letter to Alphabet’s shareholders.

In his annual letter sent to shareholders of Google umbrella organisation Alphabet yesterday, Brin said that “new questions and responsibilities” had been raised about the potential of AI.

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Drone, drones, Entertainment, government, Hot Issues

Illegal drone use over New York City is steeply rising

Drone Racing Event Held On New York City's Governors Island

Within a single year, illegal drone sightings in New York City have increased by 68 percent.

When New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo vowed to establish the state’s first drone-testing corridor, this is probably not what he had in mind. New York City has seen an increase in illegal drone use of 68 percent from the first three quarters of 2016 compared with the same period in 2017.

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Automobiles, City Planning, Hot Issues, Ideas, Science & Technology News

Could congestion pricing finally work for New York City ?

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Worsening traffic in New York City is a personal inconvenience, an environmental blight, and an economic drag—possibly to the tune of $20 billion. That’s the latest projection by the Partnership for New York City of how much the metro area stands to lose for each the next five years, if nothing is done to unjam cars.

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