Earlier this week long-time Slashdot reader DJAdapt wrote: According to a post on the Kronos Community Page, a cyber security incident due to a ransomware attack is affecting UKG Workforce Central, UKGTeleStaff, Healthcare Extensions, and Banking Scheduling. Although they are currently working with cyber security experts on the issue, they say that it may take several weeks to restore full system availability.
CNN reported: Ultimate Kronos Group, one of the largest human resources companies, disclosed a crippling ransomware attack on Monday [December 13th], impacting payroll systems for a number of workers. After noticing "unusual activity" on Saturday [December 11th], Kronos noted that its systems were down and could remain that way for several weeks.

Kronos has a long list of notable customers across the public and private sector, including the city of Cleveland, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), Tesla and MGM Resorts International. It also works with many hospitals across the country. Some employers find themselves having to make contingency plans in order to pay workers, such as shifting to paper checks. And some impacted employees have been unable to access payroll systems...

In addition to the potential payroll issues, there's also data privacy concerns. The city of Cleveland said in a statement Monday that Kronos alerted it that sensitive information may have been compromised in the attack. Employee names, addresses and the last four digits of social security numbers may have been stolen by the hackers inside Kronos's network.
Other Kronos customers include Whole Foods, GameStop and Honda, as well as state and local government agencies like the state of West Virginia, reports NBC News: John Riggi, the senior advisor for cybersecurity at the American Hospital Association, an industry group, said that he had spoken with multiple hospitals that have had to create contingency plans for getting employees paid, managing their schedules and tracking their hours. "Quite frankly, this could not have happened at a worse time. We've had a surge in Covid patients, flu patients," Riggi said. "It's a distraction to hospital administrators at a time when they don't need any additional burden or diversion of resources."
"Though it has not been confirmed, there is speculation that the notorious Log4Shell vulnerability was involved," writes CPO magazine, "given that the Kronos cloud services are known to be built on Java to a great degree...."

"Microsoft's security team has reported that ransomware attacks are already unfolding after these breaches in at least several cases."

Slashdot reader SoftwareArtist shares an announcement from a Stanford University institute for environmental studies. "For some, visions of a future powered by clean, renewable energy are clouded by fears of blackouts driven by intermittent electricity supplies," the announcement begins.

"Those fears are misplaced, according to a new Stanford University study that analyzes grid stability under multiple scenarios in which wind, water and solar energy resources power 100% of U.S. energy needs for all purposes." "This study is the first to examine grid stability in all U.S. grid regions and many individual states after electrifying all energy and providing the electricity with only energy that is both clean and renewable," said study lead author Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford... Imagine all cars and trucks were powered with electric motors or hydrogen fuel cells, electric heat pumps replaced gas furnaces and water heaters and wind turbines and solar panels replaced coal and natural gas power plants. The study envisions those and many more transitions in place across the electricity, transportation, buildings and industrial sectors in the years 2050 and 2051...

Interconnecting larger and larger geographic regions made power supply smoother and costs lower because it upped the chances of available wind, sun and hydro power availability and reduced the need for extra wind turbines, solar panels and batteries. A significant finding of the study was that long-duration batteries were neither needed nor helpful for keeping the grid stable. Instead, grid stability could be obtained by linking together currently available batteries with storage durations of four hours or less. Linking together short-duration batteries can provide long-term storage when they are used in succession. They can also be discharged simultaneously to meet heavy peaks in demand for short periods. In other words, short-duration batteries can be used for both big peaks in demand for short periods and lower peaks for a long period or anything in-between.
Other findings:

• Cleaner air would spare about 53,200 people from pollution-related deaths every year. It would also spare millions more from pollution-related illnesses. Total estimated health costs saved each year: $700 billion.
• Building and operating a completely renewable grid may create 4.7 million long-term jobs.

• Per capita household energy costs were nearly 63% less.

• New electricity generators would occupy about 0.84% of U.S. land (versus roughly 1.3% occupied today by the fossil fuel industry).

Joe_Dragon shares a report from The Verge: An Amazon delivery driver in Illinois was told to keep delivering packages after she reported hearing tornado sirens, with the dispatcher saying that the sirens were "just a warning." According to a report by Bloomberg, which includes screenshots of the conversation, the driver was told that returning to the warehouse would be viewed as a route refusal, "which [would] ultimately end with you not having a job come tomorrow morning."

The conversation reportedly happened on Friday evening, around an hour and a half before a tornado hit an Amazon facility around 30 miles away from the driver. After being told twice to "just keep delivering," the driver was eventually instructed to shelter in place "for 15-20 minutes, then continue as normal." (The instructions to shelter in place were repeated several more times after.) The driver, expressing that a delivery van wouldn't provide much safety, said she wanted to return to base. ""If you decide to come back, that choice is yours.""

The dispatcher's response is harrowing: "If you decide to come back, that choice is yours. But I can tell you it won't be viewed as for your own safety. The safest practice is to stay exactly where you are." The dispatcher said drivers couldn't be recalled unless Amazon directed it and that she would lose her job if she returned. The tornado ended up touching down near a highway, throwing cars in the air, according to Bloomberg, though the driver involved in the text exchange is reported to be safe. Amazon told Bloomberg that the dispatcher "should have immediately directed the driver to seek shelter" when they reported hearing the sirens and said that "under no circumstance should the dispatcher have threatened the driver's employment." The company says it's investigating the incident.

In Boeing's factory of the future, immersive 3-D engineering designs will be twinned with robots that speak to each other, while mechanics around the world will be linked by $3,500 HoloLens headsets made by Microsoft. From a report: It is a snapshot of an ambitious new Boeing strategy to unify sprawling design, production and airline services operations under a single digital ecosystem -- in as little as two years. Critics say Boeing has repeatedly made similar bold pledges on a digital revolution, with mixed results. But insiders say the overarching goals of improving quality and safety have taken on greater urgency and significance as the company tackles multiple threats.

The planemaker is entering 2022 fighting to reassert its engineering dominance after the 737 MAX crisis, while laying the foundation for a future aircraft program over the next decade -- a $15 billion gamble. It also aims to prevent future manufacturing problems like the structural flaws that have waylaid its 787 Dreamliner over the past year. "It's about strengthening engineering," Boeing's chief engineer, Greg Hyslop, told Reuters in his first interview in nearly two years. "We are talking about changing the way we work across the entire company." After years of wild market competition, the need to deliver on bulging order books has opened up a new front in Boeing's war with Europe's Airbus, this time on the factory floor.

An anonymous reader writes: Burning fossil fuels kills more than 1 million people ever year, according to a new study that examined the worldwide health effects of fine particulate pollution, also known as PM2.5. Coal, which produces sooty, particulate-laden pollution, is responsible for half of those deaths, while natural gas and oil are responsible for the other half. Some 80 percent of premature deaths due to fossil fuel combustion takes place in South Asia or East Asia, the report said. Because fine particulate pollution can be so easily inhaled and swept into the bloodstream, it is responsible for a range of diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, COPD, lung cancer, and stroke. More recently, researchers have found links between PM2.5 and other, less obvious diseases like kidney failure and Parkinson's. People who have experienced long-term exposure to PM2.5 are also at greater risk of hospitalization if they fall ill with COVID.

The researchers gathered monthly pollution and source data from 1970 to 2017 and ran it through a global air-quality model in conjunction with satellite data. The result was a global map of outdoor PM2.5 with a resolution of about 1 km^2. From there, they estimated the average outdoor exposure for people living in various parts of the world. The study was coordinated by the nonprofit Health Effects Institute, and its coauthors were Randall Martin, a professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at Washington University, and Michael Brauer, a professor of population and public health at the University of British Columbia. In regions like South Asia and East Asia and some Eastern and Central European countries, coal causes a majority of the premature deaths that result from fossil fuel combustion. That's due in part to those regions' reliance on coal and because their regulations are typically not as stringent as elsewhere. In regions like North America and Western Europe, which are less reliant on coal, oil and natural gas cause the majority of deaths from fossil fuel-related particulate pollution. Even in the US, a country with relatively stringent clean air laws, fine particulate pollution from fossil fuels is responsible for about 20,000 deaths annually, according to the study.

Clear Secure, an identification services company known for its expedited screening product for air travelers, is bringing its biometric sign-up scanners to locations beyond airports. The Wall Street Journal reports: The company has temporarily installed the biometrics machines this month inside a Showfields Inc. interactive mall and at a Rimowa Distribution Inc. luggage store in New York City as well as a Rimowa in San Francisco. Clear's main product, Clear Plus, checks travelers' identities at airport security using biometrics such as iris scans, and lets them skip the wait for agents to check their photo IDs. Enrollment typically begins online but customers usually must go to a Clear airport location to scan their biometrics. Annual memberships cost $179.

Clear created the temporary installations to showcase its technology more widely and to expose consumers to its products beyond travel, said Caryn Seidman Becker, chief executive of the company. Other products include Clear Stadium Access, a product that lets people skip long lines at sports and entertainment venues. The pop-ups are also offering Clear gift cards, a first for the company. The company also wanted to address pent-up demand from consumers who traveled less during the pandemic, Ms. Seidman Becker said.

Toyota is charging drivers for the convenience of using their key fobs to remotely start their cars. From a report: According to a report from The Drive, Toyota models 2018 or newer will need a subscription in order for the key fob to support remote start functionality. As The Drive notes, buyers are given the option to choose from an array of Connected Services when purchasing a new Toyota, and one of those services -- called Remote Connect -- just so happens to include the ability to remotely start your car with your key fob. Buyers are offered a free trial of Remote Connect, but the length of that trial depends on the audio package that's included with the vehicle.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Swedish carmaker Volvo Cars has disclosed that unknown attackers have stolen research and development information after hacking some of its servers. "Volvo Cars has become aware that one of its file repositories has been illegally accessed by a third party," the company disclosed today. "Investigations so far confirm that a limited amount of the company's R&D property has been stolen during the intrusion. Volvo Cars has earlier today concluded, based on information available, that there may be an impact on the company's operation."

Volvo said it notified relevant authorities after discovering the incident and is now investigating the data theft together with third-party experts. "The company does not see, with currently available information, that this has an impact on the safety or security of its customers' cars or their personal data," Volvo added. While the company did not disclose any other details on the breach, the Snatch ransomware gang has already claimed the attack.

Transport for London announced a ban on all e-scooters on its network, effective December 13th, over safety concerns following recent fires. The ban will apply to all public transport in London, including underground trains and buses. From a report: E-scooters are currently banned on UK roads and sidewalks, but shops can still sell them for use on private land. The only legal e-scooters in use in London are the ones part of rental trials that started over the summer. The ban does not include mobility scooters that are permitted on TfL's network, and foldable e-bikes are still permitted.

"We have been extremely worried by the recent incidents on our public transport services, which involved intense fires and considerable smoke and damage," said TfL's chief safety, health, and environment officer Lilli Matson. "We have worked with London Fire Brigade to determine how we should deal with these devices and, following that review, we have decided to ban them. Customers who try to bring them onto our network will be refused access to our stations and premises, and not be permitted to use any of our services."

Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz won regulatory approval to deploy a hands-free driving system in Germany ahead of Tesla, gaining an edge in the race to offer higher levels of automation in one of the world's most competitive car markets. Bloomberg: The automaker got the green light to sell its Drive Pilot package for use on stretches of the country's Autobahn network at a speed of up to 60 kilometers (37 miles) per hour, Mercedes said Thursday. The system was approved for Level 3 autonomous driving, a notch higher than Tesla's Level 2 Autopilot system, and will allow a drivers to take their hands off the wheel in slow-moving traffic.

"Drive Pilot enables the driver to turn away from the traffic and focus on certain secondary activities," the luxury-car maker said in a statement. "For example, to communicate with colleagues via the in-car office, to write emails, to surf the Internet or to relax and watch a film." Mercedes got permission for the system only in Germany, but said it's aiming for regulatory approval in other jurisdictions as well. Drive Pilot will be an option for the S-Class and EQS models from around the middle of next year. The automaker hasn't decided how much it will charge for the system, which has approval to be used on around 13,000 kilometers of Germany's highway network.

Tech-driven changes are coming fast and furiously to airports, including advancements in biometrics that verify identity and shorten security procedures for those passengers who opt into the programs. From a report: If it's been a year or more since you traveled, particularly internationally, you may notice something different at airports in the United States: More steps -- from checking a bag to clearing customs -- are being automated using biometrics. Biometrics are unique individual traits, such as fingerprints, that can be used to automate and verify identity. They promise both more security and efficiency in moving travelers through an airport where, at steps from check-in to boarding, passengers are normally required to show government-issued photo identification. In the travel hiatus caused by the pandemic, many airports, airlines, tech companies and government agencies like the Transportation Security Administration and United States Customs and Border Protection continued to invest in biometric advancements. The need for social distancing and contactless interactions only added to the urgency.

"The technologies have gotten much more sophisticated and the accuracy rate much higher," said Robert Tappan, the managing director for the trade group International Biometrics + Identity Association, who called the impetus to ease crowds and reduce contact through these instruments "COVID-accelerated." Many of the latest biometric developments use facial recognition, which the National Institute of Standards and Technology recently found is at least 99.5 percent accurate, rather than iris-scanning or fingerprints. "Iris-scanning has been touted as the most foolproof," said Sherry Stein, the head of technology in the Americas for SITA, a Switzerland-based biometrics tech company. "For biometrics to work, you have to be able to match to a known trusted source of data because you're trying to compare it to a record on file. The face is the easiest because all the documents we use that prove your identity -- driver's licenses, passports etc. -- rely on face." Shortly after 9/11, Congress mandated an entry and exit system using biometric technology to secure U.S. borders. Some travelers have expressed concerns about privacy, and while companies and agencies using the technology say they do not retain the images, the systems largely rely on willing travelers who agree to their use.

Tesla boss Elon Musk said on Friday the electric-car maker's much-anticipated Cybertruck would come with a high- end four-motor variant. From a report: "Initial production will be 4 motor variant, with independent, ultra fast response torque control of each wheel," Musk said in a tweet. Calling the electric pick-up truck "insane technology bandwagon," Musk said the Cybertruck would have both front and rear-wheel steer that would "not just (turn) like a tank -- it can drive diagonally like a crab." The vehicle would compete with pickup trucks such as GMC's Hummer EV, Ford's F-150 Lightning and Rivian's R1T. Of those, R1T is driven by four individual motors powering all four wheels and GMC's Hummer can drive diagonally.

Tesla has launched a mini Cyberquad designed for the kiddos starting in 2-4 weeks if you order one right now from its website. From a report: The Tesla 'Cyberquad for Kids' is available to purchase on Tesla's site for $1,900 -- a steep price relative to your average Power Wheels, but the lowest-priced vehicle in Tesla's existing lineup by far. And the Cyberquad's materials are a cut above your average battery electric kid car, with a "full steel frame," along with cushioned seating and fully adjustable suspension. It may be the cheapest Tesla you can buy, but it's also the most limited when it comes to range: You'll get up to around 15 miles on a full charge, which takes five hours to wooer up, according to the company. It's also not going to break any land speed records, with a speedometer that tops out at 10 mph (which you can limit to a max of 5 mph for safety if desired). That's still plenty fast for a kid's ride-on vehicle, which is probably why Tesla labels this one as designed for kids at least 8 and up, with a max weight of 150 lbs.

The U.S. city of Carmel, Indiana (population: 102,000) has 140 roundabouts, "with over a dozen still to come," reports the New York Times. (Alternate URL here.) "No American city has more. The main reason is safety; compared with regular intersections, roundabouts significantly reduce injuries and deaths.

"But there's also a climate benefit." Because modern roundabouts don't have red lights where cars sit and idle, they don't burn as much gasoline. While there are few studies, the former city engineer for Carmel, Mike McBride, estimates that each roundabout saves about 20,000 gallons of fuel annually, which means the cars of Carmel emit many fewer tons of planet-heating carbon emissions each year. And U.S. highway officials broadly agree that roundabouts reduce tailpipe emissions. They also don't need electricity, and, unlike stoplights, keep functioning after bad storms — a bonus in these meteorologically turbulent times.

"Modern roundabouts are the most sustainable and resilient intersections around," said Ken Sides, chairman of the roundabout committee at the Institute of Transportation Engineers...

A recent study of Carmel's roundabouts by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety found that injury crashes were reduced by nearly half at 64 roundabouts in Carmel, and even more at the more elaborate, dogbone-shaped interchanges... [V]ehicular fatalities in Carmel, according to a city study, are strikingly low; the city logged 1.9 traffic deaths per 100,000 people in 2020. In Columbus, Indiana, an hour or so south, it was 20.8. (In 2019, the national average was 11.)
The Times points out other advantages — they can also be more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists, and alleviate rush-hour backups. But Carmel's former city engineer just argues it's an improvement over an older roadway system which "doesn't put a lot of faith in the driver to make choices.

"They're used to being told what to do at every turn."

"E-commerce sales jumped nearly 32 percent in 2020 compared to the prior year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data," reports Politico — and this year "online sales are on track to outpace that record..."

"Now, cities, climate scientists and companies are trying to figure out the consequences for the planet." The most recent research is starting to incorporate more of the complexities of retail. In January, MIT's Real Estate Innovation Lab published a study that simulated hundreds of thousands of those kinds of scenarios and found online shopping to be more sustainable than traditional retail 75 percent of the time... Most research suggests that ordering goods for delivery is more beneficial for the environment because it means people are making fewer individual shopping trips. The average U.S. consumer goes to the grocery store at least 300 times a year. If they drove there, it was likely in a gas-powered vehicle. Plus, there tends to be higher energy demands at storefronts compared to warehouses. But that scale "could easily tip in the other direction," according to a study of the U.S. market published last spring by the sustainable investment firm Generation. The firm's researchers found that e-commerce is 17 percent more carbon efficient than traditional retail, but could change with a few tweaks to their assumptions, such as the number of items purchased in a single visit, the amount of packaging and the efficiency of last-mile delivery...

In an email, Amazon spokesperson Luis Davila pointed to findings by company scientists that suggest online shopping produces fewer emissions than driving to shop at a store; for instance, the company estimates that a single delivery van trip can take 100 round-trip car journeys off the road, on average. During the pandemic, customers made fewer trips to Whole Foods Market stores and other brick-and-mortar Amazon locations and shifted to home delivery, which also lowered emissions. But take a step back, and a bigger, more complex picture emerges. From 2019 to 2020, Amazon's U.S. sales jumped 36 percent to $263.5 billion. By the company's own account, its overall emissions spiked 19 percent, equivalent to running 15 coal plants for one year. More fossil fuel use and investments in buildings, data servers and transportation were key drivers.

That figure reflects its response to consumer demand during Covid-19, but doesn't capture progress Amazon made, Davila said. He said the company tracks the amount of carbon per dollar of gross merchandise sales — a concept known as carbon intensity — and by that measure, Amazon decreased the amount of carbon per purchase last year by 16 percent. In a blog post in June, a company scientist argued that this metric allows high-growth companies like Amazon to identify efficiencies. Amazon also reduced emissions from the electricity it bought by 4 percent due to new investments in clean energy, despite expanding its buildings' square footage. The company is about two-thirds of the way toward 100 percent renewable energy — a key pillar of the company's plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2040.

Emissions from deliveries are expected to decrease as Amazon deploys 100,000 electric vans in the coming decade. Davila did not disclose what portion of the company's fleet that accounts for today.
The director of MIT's Real Estate Innovation Lab also warns that cardboard boxes are some of the largest carbon pollutants in the system regardless of the method of delivery. (Politico points out most packaging ultimately "ends up in a landfill or is burned to produce energy, generating 105.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide last year, according to federal data.") That data also shows only 9% of plastic gets recycled, "because flexible plastic films and pouches and many take out containers still aren't recyclable. Neither are plastic bags, unless consumers bring them to the grocery store."

One recycler tells the site that many companies are now promising to use more recycled materials in their packaging, including Amazon, PepsiCo, Coca Cola and Target — but urges "extended producer responsibility," in which companies (not taxpayers) cover the costs of cleaning up their packaging.

AskWaves explains how the gap between air and ocean freight transport has narrowed during the pandemic. From the report: The air rate from China to the U.S. West Coast during the first week of November was about $14 per kilogram, double what it was a year ago, according to the Freightos Air Index. Shipping by air to the East Coast cost about $13, also twice as much as in 2020. [...] Air is usually the mode of last resort, limited to perishables and high-value goods with margins that can cover the extra expense. Incredibly, airfreight has become a bargain relative to ocean shipping for many companies, especially when measured against the cost of stockouts and lost sales. That's what happens when supply chains are turned upside down by constant chaos.

Ocean shipping demand to North America is up more than 20% compared to 2019. Carriers and ports have been overwhelmed, resulting in huge delays and port backlogs demonstrated most clearly by the 80 container vessels waiting last week for a berth at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Glitches in the system -- from COVID outbreaks to accidents -- created more havoc because the system is so stretched. Spot tariffs -- for immediate transactions not subject to more favorable long-term contracts -- can cost upwards of $20,000 for a forty-foot equivalent unit from China to the West Coast when a host of premiums and surcharges are included. That's 10 times greater than pre-pandemic rates and doesn't even include domestic transportation to move a shipment across the country.

Many companies, especially retailers worried about product shortages for big holiday shopping events, are trying to make up for lost time by shifting goods that normally move by ocean to air. The decision to convert ocean freight to air is easier for shippers because air transport is much more cost-competitive than it has ever been. Pre-pandemic, the average price to move air cargo was about 13 to 15 times higher than ocean, but now it is only three to five times more expensive, according to the International Air Transport Association and industry experts.

An "achievable, replicable" plan for a city that's embracing public space as never before. Curbed: New York and Curbed recruited a team of designers and consultants, led by the architecture firm WXY, to approach the streets as a matrix of overlapping, interrelated networks. The allure of more humane cities has generated an entire library's worth of plans and pilot projects, both top-down and grassroots, for areas like Downtown Brooklyn and Soho. A few years ago, a consortium of Harlem business and organizations collaborated on a plan to redesign East 125th Street. In 2019, the City Council passed a law requiring the Department of Transportation to develop a five-year citywide plan. But this torrent of good intentions and expertise has fragmented the issue further by producing more schemes to ignore, postpone, and gripe about. Most New Yorkers' concerns are exquisitely parochial: The only time a Bronxite is likely to care about, say, the width of Soho's sidewalks is if it makes parking there even worse.

So we tried to imagine what a comprehensive transformation would produce on a generic Manhattan block, to the extent that one exists. We chose Third Avenue between East 33rd and 34th Streets because of its concentration of terriblenesses and virtues. It is congested, dense, torn up, noisy, and lively. Lined by towers and tenements, plied by trucks and fed by tunnels, it's a short walk from offices, hospitals, and trains. Yet we also embraced its frenzy. Our goal was not to impose the serenity of a provincial Dutch city or to streamline the block into anodyne efficiency. New York without friction wouldn't be New York. We aspired to pack all the measures we already knew we should be taking into one vivid frame. An aerial photograph became a platform on which to overlay a possible future city. The result is a real-life I Spy book, filled with details that accumulate into a livable, equitable, safer, and more pleasant place to live. This is no futuristic fantasy of self-sweeping sidewalks or robot-controlled Tesla taxis gliding up at the touch of an app. Instead, we imagined a makeover that could happen now, given urgency and determination. To execute it in permanent, handsome materials would be slow and expensive; a recent project to renovate a stretch of Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn cost $2.2 million per block. But the DOT has already shown many times that some of this work can be achieved with paint, planters, and boulders. Getting the first draft done matters more than making it perfect and perennial.

Our efforts yielded two big lessons. The first is that every improvement is a trade-off. Protecting bus lanes with concrete barriers, for example, would keep cars out, but it would also keep limited-stop buses from passing local ones. Our street incorporates a possible set of compromises. The second is that even simple tweaks imply a far-reaching organizational overhaul. Enclosed trash bins would push the Department of Sanitation to update some of its trucks and pickup procedures. New regulations and speed limits mean enforcement, and thus money, manpower, and -- most important -- a sense of common purpose.

South Korea demonstrated a system for controlling urban air mobility vehicles (UAM) on Thursday, which it hopes will serve as taxis between major airports and downtown Seoul as soon as 2025, cutting travel time by two-thirds. From a report: Last year, South Korea announced a roadmap to begin commercial urban air travel by 2025. The transport ministry estimates such services could cut travel time for distances between 30-50km (19-31 miles) from an hour by car to 20 minutes by air. "As UAM is expected to become one of the common means of transportation that citizens use in daily life, it is absolutely imperative that we test and try out UAM services in various environments," Transport Minister Noh Hyeong-ouk, who attended the demonstration on Thursday, said in a statement. A pilot flew a two-seat model made by Germany's Volocopter at Seoul's Gimpo Airport to test and demonstrate its control and coordination.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: The recently passed $1 trillion infrastructure package is jam-packed with initiatives but sprinkled in there alongside $17 billion in funding for road safety programs is a mandate requiring carmakers to implement monitoring systems to identify and stop drunk drivers. The mandate, first noted by the Associated Press could apply to new vehicles sold as early as 2026. Courts have ordered some drunk drivers to use breathalyzers attached to ignition interlocks to start their vehicles for years, but the technology noted in this bill would take that concept much further and would need to be capable of "passively monitor[ing] the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired."

Though the Department of Transportation has yet to put its foot down on the exact type of technology it will use for this program, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and 17 automakers have been working on something called the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) since 2008. DADSS is exploring both a breath and touch-based system to detect whether or not a driver has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above 0.08%. The breath-based system aims to measure alcohol readings based on a driver's breath with the goal of distinguishing between the driver and passengers. The touch-based system meanwhile would shine an infrared light through a driver's fingertip to measure blood alcohol levels under the skin's surface. [...]

The new mandate struck a positive note with some car safety groups, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving which has advocated for more detection tech in the past. "It's monumental," Alex Otte, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving told the AP. Otte went on to describe the package as the "single most important legislation" in the group's history. At the same time though, the mandate has drawn concerns from safety experts and digital rights groups that warn driver monitoring technology could have knock-on privacy implications. In a letter sent last year by the American Highway Users Alliance, the organization urged support of the NHTSA's DADSS Research Program but expressed concerns that the technology could potentially infringe on driver's civil liberties. "The group also expressed concerns over how the collection and storage of driver data would work and who would have the rights to that data," adds Gizmodo. Others have also expressed concerns over the accuracy of driving monitoring technology and potential risks of bias.

Tonight 70 countries around the world set their clocks back an hour — including most of the United States, Canada, the EU and the UK.

Yet "The practice has drawn complaints about its disruptive effects on sleep and schedules," reports UPI, adding that "The American Academy of Medicine has called for an end to Daylight Saving Time, citing growing research that shows its deleterious effects on health and safety." [U.S.] Lawmakers are also increasingly wondering whether Daylight Saving Time is a good idea. At least 350 bills and resolutions have been introduced in every state taking aim at Daylight Saving Time since 2015, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Over the last four years, 19 states have passed similar legislation providing year-round daylight saving time if Congress allowed such changes.

Members of Congress have introduced legislation making changes to Daylight Saving Time, to no avail.

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, (Democrat — Rhode Island), said in a video posted to Twitter on Friday that the upcoming switchover was one of his least favorite times of the year since it means darker afternoons. He touted his Sunshine Protection Act that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

"We can do a lot better for daylight for everyone who is up in the afternoon," he said.
Also supporting that change is Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio. "We're about to once again do this annual craziness of changing the clock, falling back, springing forward," Newsweek quotes him as saying. "Let's go to permanent daylight saving time. The overwhelming majority of members of Congress approve and support it. Let's get it done. Let's get it passed so that we never have to do this stupid change again."

But currently in America it's the Department of Transportation which is in charge of the practice, reports USA Today, and the Department believes that the practice saves energy, prevents traffic accidents and curbs crime.

So, as the Washington Post reports, "It's that time of the year again. We change the clocks back and we whine about it."