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"The aidbot is a chatbot - a type of AI system designed to communicate with its users online - that links to WhatsApp. It is programmed to ask simple questions about the types of aid people require along with their names and locations. This information is then recorded onto a Google spreadsheet which Hania and her team of unpaid volunteers, made up of friends and family, access to distribute aid such as food, blankets, mattresses, medicine and clothes. Hania used her spare time to build the bot using the website Callbell.eu, which is commonly used by businesses to engage with customers on Meta's platforms such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook messenger. She explains that the bot, which is still being used today, makes distributing aid more efficient as it cuts down the amount of time she spends responding to requests for aid over WhatsApp."

"Rite Aid facial recognition misidentified Black, Latino and Asian people as 'likely' shoplifters Surveillance systems incorrectly and without customer consent marked shoppers as 'persons of interest', an FTC settlement says Johana Bhuiyan and agencies Wed 20 Dec 2023 14.29 EST Last modified on Thu 21 Dec 2023 12.04 EST Rite Aid used facial recognition systems to identify shoppers that were previously deemed "likely to engage" in shoplifting without customer consent and misidentified people - particularly women and Black, Latino or Asian people - on "numerous" occasions, according to a new settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. As part of the settlement, Rite Aid has been forbidden from deploying facial recognition technology in its stores for five years."

"Musk says Starlink will provide Gaza connectivity for aid groups"

"Scientists from University of Washington have been struggling for the past decade to decipher the complex structure of an enzyme that exhibits behavior similar to that of an enzyme key in the development of AIDS from an HIV infection, and which might hold a critical role in building a cure for the disease. Gamers playing spatial game Foldit have managed to collectively determine the enzyme's structure in ten days."

"One prototype system that Wood has helped developed, called Second Skin, can be worn by patients with neuromuscular disorders to stimulate nerve activity and advance rehabilitation. He says that soft- and micro-robotic devices may one day be used inside the body to aid minimally invasive medical procedures."

"As more governments turn to contact tracing apps to aid in their efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak, cybersecurity experts are warning this may spark renewed interest in Bluetooth attacks. They urge developers to ensure such apps are regularly tested for vulnerabilities and release patches swiftly to plug potential holes, while governments should provide assurance that their databases are secure and the data collected will not be used for purposes other than as originally intended. "

"Ministers have paused a planned update to the NHS Covid-19 app after Apple and Google blocked it from their stores over privacy violations. The app, which aids contact tracing in England and Wales, uses technology built by the Silicon Valley companies to track interactions between users with their bluetooth signals and venue "check-ins"."

"At the Seco Innovation Laboratory in Fagersta, Sweden, R&D technician Jan Gravningsbråten, could easily be mistaken for a mad scientist, surrounded by blinking red lasers, trays of inserts under observation, diagnostic equipment and countless other measuring devices, all in aid of his ongoing work with data matrix codes, also known as QR codes."

"The model is AI-generated, a digital rendering of a human being that will start appearing on Levi's e-commerce website later this year. The brand teamed with LaLaLand.ai, a digital studio that makes customized AI models for companies like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, to dream up this avatar. Amy Gershkoff Bolles, Levi's global head of digital and emerging technology strategy, announced the model's debut at a Business of Fashion event in March. AI models will not completely replace the humans, she said, but will serve as a "supplement" intended to aid in the brand's representation of various sizes, skin tones and ages."

""Having a tamper-proof record-keeping system that can be shared across the vaccine supply chain is always important, but critically so here for the COVID vaccines," Harmon said. Hedera's chief executive believes that decentralized computer networks with hundreds or even thousands of participants can play an important role in other aspects of pandemic management - to combat vaccine counterfeiting, for example, and create unforgeable vaccination certificates."

"The constitutional right to safe, legal abortion has evaporated following the recent Supreme Court decision. Some states with so-called "trigger bans" have immediately criminalized abortion. Next, Congress may seek to criminalize abortion in all 50 states, putting the government in control of peoples' bodies. Google is fully complicit in the criminalization of people seeking abortion care. That's because Google stores historical location data about hundreds of millions of smartphone users, which it routinely shares with government agencies through "geofence" orders that unmask the identities of anyone who traveled to a specific place at a specific time-like an abortion clinic on a specific day. Google received 11,554 such geofence warrants in 2020."