Las Vegas officials push for Elon Musk to build tunnel transit system

LAS VEGAS — Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s dream of an express tunnel transit system could finally become a reality in Las Vegas after major setbacks in other cities.

Las Vegas’ tourism agency announced Wednesday it is recommending that an enterprise backed by the divisive billionaire receive a contract to build and operate an underground tunnel system through which autonomous electric vehicles would whisk people around a mega convention center, and in the future, possibly the city’s famous casino-filled corridor.

If approved, the system of just over a mile long would debut by January 2021 at the facility, which hosts more than 1 million people every year. The Musk-owned The Boring Company would build the project costing from $35 million to $55 million.

It’s different from his beleaguered efforts to build underground tunnel systems in other cities because Musk will be paid for it if the contract is approved. Projects in Los Angeles and Chicago have drawn opposition and skepticism from residents and officials about whether they will actually open.

Musk has faced recent blowback because of his behavior and tweeting habits. He has had dust-ups with stock market regulators and agreed last year to step down as chairman of the board of Tesla, his electric car company.

But Las Vegas tourism officials are ready to get on board with a Musk project.

“It’s really innovative. I think it will be an attraction in and of itself, frankly,” Steve Hill, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, told the Associated Press.

Details of the project have not been finalized. But Hill said the system will probably have three or four stations, each situated at entrances to the convention center’s halls. People would be carried to the hall of their choice in electric vehicles moving through parallel tunnels, each running in one direction.

The fleet could include Tesla’s Model X and Model 3 and a vehicle with capacity for about 16 people, Hill said. All vehicles would be fully autonomous, meaning they won’t have backup human drivers.

The Las Vegas Convention Center, which attracts worldwide gatherings including the premier Consumer Electronics Show, is undergoing an expansion. When finished, convention attendees could log about two miles walking from one end to the other. The distance led officials to look for a transportation solution.

The service within the convention center is expected to be free for people attending events.

The convention center is operated by the authority, which is funded by a county room tax and is responsible for promoting the destination around the world. The tourism agency is governed by a board of directors.

The authority is expected to present to the board the recommendation to select Musk’s company March 12. If approved, Hill said, the agency hopes to return to the board with a full design and proposed contract by June.

Musk in December unveiled a test tunnel built under a Los Angeles suburb, allowing reporters and guests to take rides. It came almost two years to the day after Musk announced on Twitter that “traffic is driving me nuts” and he was “going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging.”

“I am actually going to do this,” he added in response to initial skepticism. Soon after, he began The Boring Company, tongue in cheek intentional.

The skepticism has not subsided. The Boring Company in November canceled its plans for another test tunnel in the Los Angeles area after a neighborhood group filed a lawsuit over concerns about traffic and disruptions from trucks hauling out dirt during the boring process.

Now plans for a project in Chicago appear to be in jeopardy. Neither mayoral candidate approves of plans announced in June that called for a system similar to the one proposed for Las Vegas. It would carry people between Chicago’s downtown and O’Hare International Airport at speeds of up to 150 mph through underground tunnels.

Hill said he does not expect permitting processes in the Las Vegas area to put the project behind schedule should it be approved, because the city is “committed to innovation.”

“Look at everything that we have built in Las Vegas, and this city and everybody who has built it found ways to make that happen,” he said. “As long as this continues to make sense, I believe that we will figure out how to make it happen.”

Hill acknowledged the technology that will be used in the project has not been used commercially, but he said the company has the talent to make the project a reality.

The confidence in The Boring Company is such that the authority already has optional routes for the tunnel system to expand to connect to the Las Vegas Strip, the city’s downtown and McCarran International Airport. An expansion of that magnitude could be a solution to the congestion affecting the Strip and nearby areas.

“We do see it as a real opportunity and something we would like to pursue,” Hill said.

Steve Davis, president of The Boring Company, said the speed at which the vehicles will move inside the convention center’s tunnels will depend on the number of stations built. The technology involved in the project is being tested every day in the tunnel in Hawthorne, California, he said.

The company believes it will be able to deliver the project by the 2021 deadline, just before that year’s edition of the CES tech gadget gathering. It is also eyeing the expansion possibility.

“If the community likes it, and they come, they ride at the convention center and they say, ‘This is great. It’s comfortable. It’s fast. It’s awesome.’ Well, there are other places it can go,” Davis said.

First ever all-female spacewalk to take place this month

Anne McClain (left) and Christina Koch Getty Images

Houston, we have history in the making.

The first ever all-female spacewalk at the International Space Station is scheduled to take place on March 29, the tail-end of Women’s History Month, NASA confirmed to multiple outlets on Wednesday, NASA confirmed on Wednesday.

The first of its kind walk will include NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch as part of Expedition 59. The women will be supported on the ground by Canadian Space Agency flight controller Kristen Facciol, who will serve as console at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston

“I just found out that I’ll be on console providing support for the FIRST ALL FEMALE SPACEWALK,” Facciol tweeted March 1.

“I can not contain my excitement!!!!”

The all-female crew was actually just a coincidence and was not planned this way, a spokesperson told The Post.

“It was not orchestrated to be this way; these spacewalks were originally scheduled to take place in the fall,” Stephanie Schierholz wrote in an email.

She said besides the two female spacewalkers, and the female flight controller, two other women will complete the crew.

“The Lead Flight Director is Mary Lawrence, and Jackie Kagey (also a woman), is the lead EVA (spacewalk) flight controller,” Schierholz said.

The purpose of the spacewalk is to upgrade batteries at the space station, which were delivered last summer.

The March 29 spacewalk is scheduled to last for seven hours, according to NASA’s website.

The first woman to walk in space was Svetlana Savitskaya in July 1984 and since 1998, the space station has hosted 213 spacewalks, USA Today reported. The US has completed 160 while Russia has 53 under their belt, the outlet said.

YouTube accused of making it too easy to build killer drones

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It is “terrifyingly easy” to build a killer drone that can identify targets and make decisions to fire on its own, experts have warned.

Fears are growing that the snowballing production of deadly autonomous weapons could result in terrorist attacks and airports being held to ransom by individuals and extremist groups.

China is already “aggressively” exporting the most sophisticated killer drones and pilotless aircraft to Asia, Africa and combat zones in the Middle East.

But Pentagon defense expert and ex-US Army Ranger Paul Scharre pointed out that it takes just seconds for anyone to find all the software and pieces needed to build your own weaponized drone.

Hundreds of YouTube videos instruct viewers how to attach guns and AK-47s to drones — that can easily be bought online — from their own garage.

It is still completely legal to build and fly a weaponized drone on your property in the US.

You can even download trained neural networks for free that would enable the drone to identify targets and make decisions on its own.

Drones can “make decisions on their own”

Inspired by human brains, these computing systems are able to learn and operate using previous experience — with no human action required.

YouTube insists it removes content that provides instructional modification or transformation of a firearm in order to make it more dangerous or deadly.

But the ease at which autonomous drone technology is available for the masses is sparking fears among AI and defense experts across the world.

Especially since Gatwick Airport, near London, was disrupted for more than three days over Christmas last year due to unauthorized drone activity.

Scharre, the director of the national security program at the Center for a New American Security, told The Sun: “It’s a terrifying reality that we’re going to have to confront. People can build simple autonomous weapons and carrier weapons for terrorist attacks from their garage.

“We’ve already seen in the UK and US that drones are so ubiquitous that we have to be concerned about the threat from drones disrupting air travel.”

“We need to prepare”

Scharre said the threat from drones is only going to “become more challenging as more people build autonomous drones and we need to prepare for that.”

The defense expert, who wrote “Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War,” said governments need to start thinking intelligently about countermeasures.

“It is a very real security challenge and we need to be about to defend effectively against these drones,” he said.

“We can’t live in a world where one individual can shut down airports or air traffic.

“We need to manage the possibility of threats in the third dimension — airports have great security on the ground, but drones just leap over that.”

Airports and arenas “vulnerable” to attack

Professor Noel Sharkey, who is co-founder of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, shares this view.

He raised concerns that airports, concert venues, sports stadiums and government buildings in the UK are vulnerable to imminent attack from drone swarms and autonomous weapons.

The AI professor said experts have been warning the government about the “massive hole in our security” since 2007.

“This is what disturbed me about Gatwick — the absolute lack of preparedness,” he told The Sun.

“What I’m mainly concerned about is the possibility of a terror attack as ISIS already has this technology.

“We cannot be playing catch up like this. Our government security is not prepared.”

“No defense” against drone swarms

Perhaps most worryingly, he claims Britain has no effective defense against swarms of drones.

Both the US and China have been working on swarms of small aircraft (more than 100) that can be controlled by one or a few people or work in autonomous mode.

“You might be able to disrupt, or shoot down a few drones, but if there’s a whole swarm some of them will get through,” Sharkey said.

“There’s currently no way to block them.”

He also voiced fears that these drones could be used to attack arenas and football matches and they could even unleash chemicals.

Aviation Minister Liz Sugg said: “Flying drones illegally puts others at risk. The law is clear that these are serious criminal acts that hold lengthy prison sentences.

“The government is further strengthening the law by extending the no-fly zone around airports and from November all drone users must be registered and tested – which will help hold illegal drone users to account.”

“No-fly zones” widened

President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month meant to spur the development and regulation of artificial intelligence.

The order aimed to improve access to the cloud computing services and data needed to build AI systems and promote cooperation with foreign powers.

It came amid warnings over China unleashing lethal fully autonomous drones that can carry out targeted military strikes.

US national security think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS) said in a report that Chinese officials see this AI “arms race” as a threat to global peace.

Gregory C. Allen, the author of the report, said China is rushing to integrate ever more sophisticated artificial intelligence into weapons and military equipment.

One example is the Blowfish A2 drone, which China exports internationally and which Allen says is advertised as being capable of “full autonomy all the way up to targeted strikes.”

China unleashing sophisticated drones

The Blowfish A2 “autonomously performs complex combat missions, including fixed-point timing detection and fixed-range reconnaissance and targeted precision strikes.”

Depending on customer preferences, Chinese military drone manufacturer Ziyan offers to equip Blowfish A2 with either missiles or machine guns.

Allen wrote: “Though many current generation drones are primarily remotely operated, Chinese officials generally expect drones and military robotics to feature ever more extensive AI and autonomous capabilities in the future.

“Chinese weapons manufacturers already are selling armed drones with significant amounts of combat autonomy.”

Russia’s “kamikaze drone”

Russia has also unveiled a new and deadly kamikaze drone after it “successfully completed” trials.

The latest precision weapon from arms giant Kalashnikov “delivers explosives to any terrain, bypassing systems of air defense.”

The KYB (Cube) drone — with a maximum flying time of just 30 minutes — was showcased for the first time at the international IBEX arms exhibition in Dubai.

A video shows the unmanned military flying machine exploding as it reaches its target.

The Russian drone flies at speeds of between 50 and 80 mph and can carry a payload of explosives up to 6.6 pounds, say its manufacturers.

“This is an extremely precise and very effective weapon, incredibly hard to fight by traditional air defense systems,” said Sergey Chemezov, head of Rostec, a Russian state giant in charge of development strategic arms companies.

“The explosive can be delivered to target regardless of how well hidden it is.”

It operates “regardless of hidden terrains, at both high and low altitude,” he said.

TikTok to pay record-breaking $5.7M fine for violating child privacy law

AFP/Getty Images

The company behind the popular lip-syncing app TikTok has agreed to pay nearly $6 million as part of a record-breaking settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over claims that it “illegally collected” sensitive data from children — including voice recordings and geolocation.

“This is the largest civil penalty ever obtained by the Commission in a children’s privacy case,” FTC officials said in a statement.

Details of the $5.7 million settlement were posted Wednesday on the agency’s website, along with an outline of the allegations that were made against TikTok — which was formerly known as Musical.ly before it was acquired by the Chinese company ByteDance in 2017.

In the FTC’s complaint, officials claimed that TikTok operators violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. The federal law requires websites and online services to obtain “parental consent” before collecting personal info from children under the age of 13.

TikTok allegedly “knew many children were using the app but they still failed to seek parental consent before collecting names, email addresses, and other personal information,” according to FTC Chairman Joe Simons.

“This record penalty should be a reminder to all online services and websites that target children,” he said. “We take enforcement of COPPA very seriously, and we will not tolerate companies that flagrantly ignore the law.”

In a separate statement, FTC commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter vowed to take further action against TikTok should investigators uncover more “disturbing practices” in the future.

“In our view, these practices reflected the company’s willingness to pursue growth even at the expense of endangering children,” the pair said. “FTC investigations typically focus on individual accountability only in certain circumstances—and the effect has been that individuals at large companies have often avoided scrutiny. We should move away from this approach. Executives of big companies who call the shots as companies break the law should be held accountable…As we continue to pursue violations of law, we should prioritize uncovering the role of corporate officers and directors and hold accountable everyone who broke the law.”

In response to the settlement, TikTok also released a statement on Wednesday saying it “implemented changes to accommodate younger US users in a limited, separate app experience that introduces additional safety and privacy protections designed specifically for this audience.”

“We have always worked to provide our users with the best possible platform to foster their creativity,” the statement said. “Beginning today, this additional app experience now allows us to split users into age-appropriate TikTok environments, in line with FTC guidance for mixed audience apps. The new environment for younger users does not permit the sharing of personal information, and it puts extensive limitations on content and user interaction. Both current and new TikTok users will be directed to the age-appropriate app experience.”