The chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday strongly rebutted criticism that the agency is trying to crush the crypto industry, and said many companies in the space had made a "calculated economic decision" to flout its rules. From a report: Speaking at a Piper Sandler conference in New York, Gary Gensler also reiterated his view that the "vast majority" of crypto tokens meet the test for being a security and should be registered with the SEC. That means most crypto exchanges have to comply with the securities laws too, he added. "When crypto asset market participants go on Twitter or TV and say they lacked 'fair notice' that their conduct could be illegal, don't believe it," he said. "They may have made a calculated economic decision to take the risk of enforcement as the cost of doing business." The crypto industry has attacked Gensler in recent days after the SEC sued two of the world's largest crypto exchanges, Coinbase and Binance, for allegedly breaking securities laws by failing to register their operations with the agency.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: The world got a first glimpse into the US government's far-reaching surveillance of American citizens' communications -- namely, their Verizon telephone calls -- 10 years ago this week when Edward Snowden's initial leaks hit the press. [...] In the decade since then, "reformers have made real progress advancing the bipartisan notion that Americans' liberty and security are not mutually exclusive," [US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)] said. "That has delivered tangible results: in 2015 Congress ended bulk collection of Americans' phone records by passing the USA Freedom Act." This bill sought to end the daily snooping into American's phone calls by forcing telcos to collect the records and make the Feds apply for the information.

That same month, a federal appeals court unanimously ruled that the NSA's phone-records surveillance program was unlawful. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the New York Civil Liberties Union sued to end the secret phone spying program, which had been approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, just days after Snowden disclosed its existence. "Once it was pushed out into open court, and the court was able to hear from two sides and not just one, the court held that the program was illegal," Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology project, told The Register. The Freedom Act also required the federal government to declassify and release "significant" opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and authorized the appointment of independent amici -- friends of the court intended to provide an outside perspective. The FISC was established in 1978 under the FISA -- the legislative instrument that allows warrantless snooping. And prior to the Freedom Act, this top-secret court only heard the government's perspective on things, like why the FBI and NSA should be allowed to scoop up private communications.

"To its credit, the government has engaged in reforms, and there's more transparency now that, on the one hand, has helped build back some trust that was lost, but also has made it easier to shine a light on surveillance misconduct that has happened since then," Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, told The Register. Wyden also pointed to the sunsetting of the "deeply flawed surveillance law," Section 215 of the Patriot Act, as another win for privacy and civil liberties. That law expired in March 2020 after Congress did not reauthorize it. "For years, the government relied on Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act to conduct a dragnet surveillance program that collected billions of phone records (Call Detail Records or CDR) documenting who a person called and for how long they called them -- more than enough information for analysts to infer very personal details about a person, including who they have relationships with, and the private nature of those relationships," Electronic Frontier Foundation's Matthew Guariglia, Cindy Cohn and Andrew Crocker said. James Clapper, the former US Director of National Intelligence, "stated publicly that the Snowden disclosures accelerated by seven years the adoption of commercial encryption," Wizner said. "At the individual level, and at the corporate level, we are more secure."

"And at the corporate level, what the Snowden revelations taught big tech was that even as the government was knocking on the front door, with legal orders to turn over customer data, it was breaking in the backdoor," Wizner added. "Government was hacking those companies, finding the few points in their global networks where data passed unencrypted, and siphoning it off." "If you ask the government -- if you caught them in a room, and they were talking off the record -- they would say the biggest impact for us from the Snowden disclosures is that it made big tech companies less cooperative," he continued. "I regard that as a feature, not a bug."

The real issue that the Snowden leaks revealed is that America's "ordinary system of checks and balances doesn't work very well for secret national security programs," Wizner said. "Ten years have gone by," since the first Snowden disclosures, "and we don't know what other kinds of rights-violating activities have been taking place in secret, and I don't trust our traditional oversight systems, courts and the Congress, to ferret those out," Wizner said. "When you're dealing with secret programs in a democracy, it almost always requires insiders who are willing to risk their livelihoods and their freedom to bring the information to the public."

Google's cloud business is expanding its use of new artificial intelligence technologies in health care, giving medical professionals at Mayo Clinic the ability to quickly find patient information using the types of tools powering the latest chatbots. From a report: On Wednesday, Google Cloud said Mayo Clinic is testing a new service called Enterprise Search on Generative AI App Builder, which was introduced Tuesday. The tool effectively lets clients create their own chatbots using Google's technology to scour mounds of disparate internal data. In health care, that means workers can interpret data such as a patient's medical history, imaging records, genomics or labs more quickly and with a simple query, even if the information is stored across different formats and locations. Mayo Clinic, one of the top hospital systems in the U.S. with dozens of locations, is an early adopter of the technology for Google, which is trying to bolster the use of generative AI in the medical system.

Mayo Clinic will test out different use cases for the search tool in the coming months, and Vish Anantraman, chief technology officer at Mayo Clinic, said it has already been "very fulfilling" for helping clinicians with administrative tasks that often contribute to burnout. For instance, if a physician needs to see information about a cohort of female patients aged 45 through 55, including their mammograms and medical charts, they can enter that query into the search tool instead of seeking out each element separately. Similarly, if a physician needs to know which clinical trials a patient may match, they can search for that, too.

Pornhub visitors in Virginia, Mississippi, and Arkansas will see a "very important message" on the adult website's homepage starting today. From a report: Pornhub's public service announcement prompts visitors to contact representatives and oppose recently passed age-verification laws in these states that Pornhub claims puts children and all users' privacy at risk. If users don't support Pornhub before laws go into effect, the company says, Pornhub could potentially restrict access in these states -- a threat it already followed through on in Utah.

In the PSA, adult entertainer Cherie Deville tells Pornhub users that instead of states requiring ID to access adult content, "the best and most effective solution for protecting children and adults alike is to verify users' age at a device level and allow or block access to age-restricted materials and websites accordingly." According to CNN, this PSA is part of a larger effort by Pornhub and its private equity owners, Ethical Capital Partners (ECP), to work with big tech companies to create new device-based age verification solutions. So far, ECP partner Solomon Friedman told CNN that ECP has lobbied Apple, Google, and Microsoft to "develop a technological standard that might turn a user's electronic device into the proof of age necessary to access restricted online content."

US aviation regulators on Wednesday unveiled their first framework for how to train pilots for the expected new breed of electric-powered urban air taxis designed to revolutionize short-hop travel in cities. From a report: The Federal Aviation Administration published a proposed set of regulations that attempt to create an orderly process for building a pipeline of pilots on the devices, which don't currently fit into existing regulations. It would allow flight crews trained on existing aircraft to take credit for that experience as they transition to the new devices known as electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVOTLs, the FAA said in a statement. It also creates a pathway for pilots to receive FAA sign-off for specific new aircraft and attempts to merge the new technology into existing rules as much as possible, the agency said.

"These proposed rules of the sky will safely usher in this new era of aviation and provide the certainty the industry needs to develop," David Boulter, FAA's acting associate administrator for aviation safety, said in the release. The proposal is a key step in allowing the new aircraft -- which take off vertically like helicopters, but can fly with the efficiency of fixed-wing planes -- to be introduced into the US aviation system. The agency has estimated that it will approve a handful of the devices as early as 2025.

SonicSpike shares a report from CBS News: As possible record-setting crowds fill airports nationwide, passengers may encounter new technology at the security line. At 25 airports in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, the TSA is expanding a controversial digital identification program that uses facial recognition. This comes as the TSA and other divisions of Homeland Security are under pressure from lawmakers to update technology and cybersecurity. "We view this as better for security, much more efficient, because the image capture is fast and you'll save several seconds, if not a minute," said TSA Administrator David Pekoske.

At the world's busiest airport in Atlanta, the TSA checkpoint uses a facial recognition camera system to compare a flyer's face to the picture on their ID in seconds. If there's not a match, the TSA officer is alerted for further review. "Facial recognition, first and foremost, is much, much more accurate," Pekoske said. "And we've tested this extensively. So we know that it brings the accuracy level close to 100% from mid-80% with just a human looking at a facial match." The program has been rolled out to more than two dozen airports nationwide since 2020 and the TSA plans to add the technology, which is currently voluntary for flyers, to at least three more airports by the end of the year. There are skeptics. Five U.S. senators sent a letter demanding that TSA halt the program.

The White House has not shared much of anything with lawmakers about who the administration thinks should be the next national cyber director, a top cyber-minded senator told Axios. From the report: It's been nearly four months since Chris Inglis stepped down as the first national cyber director inside the White House, and lawmakers and policy experts have been putting pressure on President Joe Biden in recent weeks to name a replacement.

Last month, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) sent a letter to Biden questioning the delay in picking a nominee and encouraging the president to nominate current acting director Kemba Walden to the post. Yet in the three weeks since the lawmakers sent their letter, they haven't heard anything from the White House, King told Axios in a recent interview. What they're saying: "I'm really puzzled; I just don't know what's going on," King told Axios. "This is an important job, and it's an important moment and they have a highly qualified, able acting director." Congress created the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) as the Biden administration was taking office in early 2021.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, of mishandling customer funds as well as lying to regulators and investors about its operations in a sweeping case filed in federal court on Monday. From a report: The Wall Street regulator said Binance had been mixing "billions of dollars" in customer funds and secretly sending them to a separate company controlled by Binance's founder, Changpeng Zhao. The charges included misleading investors about the adequacy of its systems to detect and control manipulative trading. Regulators also said Binance did not take sufficient steps to restrict U.S. investors from accessing Binance's unregulated exchange.

"We allege that Zhao and the Binance entities not only knew the rules of the road, but they also consciously chose to evade them and put their customers and investors at risk," said Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the S.E.C.'s enforcement division. The nation's top securities regulator filed 13 charges against Binance and Mr. Zhao, better known in the crypto world as "C.Z." The S.E.C. is taking action a little over a month after the Commodities Futures Trading Commission filed its own civil enforcement action against Binance and Mr. Zhao.

The Washington Post looks at "Americans who want to lower their carbon footprints — but are stymied by their landlords." Homes and apartments burn oil and gas, suck up electricity, and account for about one-fifth of the United States' total greenhouse gas emissions. But current attempts to green America's homes, including billions of dollars in tax credits for energy efficient appliances and retrofits, seem aimed at the affluent owners of detached, single-family homes — in short, Mad-Men-style suburbias. In reality, about one-third of the country's households live in rented apartments or houses... And they generally do not have the spare cash — or the permission from their landlords — to make environmental upgrades. Part of the issue is what's known in economics as the "split-incentive problem," or the "landlord-tenant problem." Roughly 75% of tenants in the United States pay their own utility bills; that means they have a strong incentive to try to conserve electricity, water, or gas to save cash. But their landlords, who have to pay for installing and replacing those appliances and heating systems, don't. They benefit from renting out their properties as quickly and cheaply as possible...

Renters, therefore, are often stuck with leaky housing, inefficient appliances and ancient heating systems. According to one study from 2018, renters use almost 3 percent more energy than homeowners thanks to the split incentive problem... President Biden's signature climate bill includes an estimated $37 billion in tax credits to help households switch to efficient heat pumps, water heaters, or to seal up and insulate their homes. Those credits are applicable to individual homeowners or renters — but not landlords. According to IRS guidance, "the credits are never available for a home that you don't use as a residence." And few renters are going to want to spend thousands of dollars on a heat pump that they'll have to leave behind when they move...

If the landlord problem isn't solved, millions of less wealthy Americans could be left out of the green transition — and will be stuck with higher energy bills. For example, even in the same income bracket, homeowners are almost three times more likely than renters to own electric vehicles — largely because renters lack home charging. There are programs, including some in America's giant climate bill, that could change this... Still, those programs haven't launched yet and aren't expected until at least late this year. And even though renters make up one-third of American households, they're still getting less investment; the tax credits for homeowners are uncapped. The federal government could end up spending well over $50 billion on homeowners, and about $8 billion on renters.

Most renters remain at the mercy of their apartment managers and landlords.

Longtime Slashdot reader MightyMartian shares a report from the New York Times: Arizona has determined that there is not enough groundwater for all of the housing construction that has already been approved in the Phoenix area, and will stop developers from building some new subdivisions (Source paywalled, alternative source), a sign of looming trouble in the West and other places where overuse, drought and climate change are straining water supplies. The decision by state officials very likely means the beginning of the end to the explosive development that has made the Phoenix area the fastest growing metropolitan region in the country. The state said it would not revoke building permits that have already been issued and is instead counting on new water conservation measures and alternative sources to produce the water necessary for housing developments that have already been approved.

Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and its suburbs, gets more than half its water supply from groundwater. Most of the rest comes from rivers and aqueducts as well as recycled wastewater. In practical terms, groundwater is a finite resource; it can take thousands of years or longer to be replenished. The announcement of a groundwater shortage means Arizona would no longer give developers in some areas of Maricopa County new permits to construct homes that rely on wells for water.

Phoenix and nearby large cities, which must obtain separate permission from state officials for their development plans every 10 to 15 years, would also be denied approval for any homes that rely on groundwater beyond what the state has already authorized. The decision means cities and developers must look for alternative sources of water to support future development -- for example, by trying to buy access to river water from farmers or Native American tribes, many of whom are facing their own shortages. That rush to buy water is likely to rattle the real estate market in Arizona, making homes more expensive and threatening the relatively low housing costs that had made the region a magnet for people from across the country.

New submitter terrorubic shares a report from Reuters: The United States said it will stop providing Russia some notifications required under the New START arms control treaty from Thursday, including updates on its missile and launcher locations, to retaliate for Moscow's 'ongoing violations' of the accord. In a fact sheet on its website, the State Department said it would also stop giving Russia telemetry information - remotely gathered data about a missile's flight - on launches of U.S. intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not formally withdrawn from the treaty, which limits deployed strategic nuclear arsenals. On Feb. 21, he said Russia would suspend participation, imperiling the last pillar of U.S.-Russian arms control. Signed in 2010 and due to expire in 2026, the New START treaty caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the countries can deploy. Under its terms, Moscow and Washington may deploy no more than 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads and 700 land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them. "The State Department said it continues to notify Russia of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and submarine ballistic missile (SLBM) launches in accordance with the 1988 Ballistic Missile Launch Notifications Agreement, and of strategic exercises in accordance with a separate 1989 accord," notes Reuters.

North America has emerged as the fastest-growing market for new battery cell manufacturing factories, driven by incentives provided by the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), according to a report by Clean Energy Associates. Electrek reports: CEA says that China is still the leading battery cell manufacturing hub, but its share will decline in "coming years." Europe has seen delays and cancellations of several planned battery factories, mostly due to high energy prices and other countries' pro-clean energy and EV manufacturing policies luring projects away. Global EV battery usage increased by 72% in just a year, from 2021 to 2022. And going forward, CEA forecasts an impressive two-year 186% growth rate on the 1,706 GWh of batteries produced in 2022.

The reason is obvious for the rapid increase in battery factories: The International Energy Agency's "Global EV Outlook 2023" reports that EV sales exceeded 10 million in 2022, and 14% of all new cars sold were electric in 2022 -- up from around 9% in 2021 and less than 5% in 2020. And battery and EV manufacturing are only going to continue to experience huge growth.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed a rule that would require all new cars and trucks to have automatic braking systems capable of preventing collisions. The rule aims to address the rise in traffic fatalities and would mandate the use of advanced systems that can automatically stop and avoid hitting pedestrians and stationary or slow-moving vehicles. The New York Times reports: The agency is proposing that all light vehicles, including cars, large pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, be equipped to automatically stop and avoid hitting pedestrians at speeds of up to 37 miles per hour. Vehicles would also have to brake and stop to avoid hitting stopped or slow-moving vehicles at speeds of up to 62 m.p.h. And the systems would have to perform well at night. About 90 percent of the new vehicles on sale now have some form of automatic emergency braking, but not all meet the standards the safety agency is proposing.

Automatic emergency braking systems typically use cameras, radar or both to spot vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists and other obstacles. By comparing a vehicle's speed and direction with those of other vehicles or people, these systems can determine that a collision is imminent, alert the driver through an alarm and activate the brakes if the driver fails to do so. [...] The safety agency will take comments on the rule from automakers, safety groups and the public before making it final -- a process that can take a year or more. The rule will go into effect three years after it is adopted.

An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece from the Guardian's Arwa Mahdawi: Insurance company documents aren't exactly renowned for being riveting reading. This week, however, State Farm, the largest insurance firm in the US by premium volume, came out with an eyeball-grabbing update: it has stopped accepting new homeowner insurance applications in California. In a statement, the company said the decision was based on the heightened risk of natural disasters, such as wildfires, along with historic increases in construction costs.

This news didn't come out of nowhere. Last year, two large insurance firms in California ended their coverage for some multimillion-dollar houses in wildfire-prone areas. "We cannot charge an adequate price for the risk," one insurance company CEO explained in an earnings call. But the scope of this announcement seems unprecedented. The US's biggest insurer halting new policies in the US's most populous state? A state with a population of nearly 40 million suddenly having its home insurance options curtailed because insurance companies know that extreme weather is only getting worse and more expensive?

If this doesn't serve as a wake-up call about the climate crisis, I don't know what will. Melting ice caps may be abstract enough to ignore, but plummeting house prices have a way of getting people's attention. House prices haven't plummeted yet, of course. Quite the opposite: California is an incredibly expensive place to live. But if you can't get insurance, it's almost impossible to get a mortgage. This makes it harder to sell your house and will make prices go down. The writing is on the wall, as insurance companies are well aware.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from France 24: The scale of plastic pollution is growing, relentlessly. The world is producing twice as much plastic waste as two decades ago, reaching 353 million tonnes in 2019, according to OECD figures. The vast majority goes into landfills, gets incinerated or is "mismanaged," meaning left as litter or not correctly disposed of. Just 9 percent of plastic waste is recycled. Ramping up plastic recycling might seem like a logical way to transform waste into a resource. But recent studies suggest that recycling plastic poses its own environmental and health risks, including the high levels of microplastics and harmful toxins produced by the recycling process that can be dangerous for people, animals and the environment. [...]

The share of plastic waste that is recycled globally is expected to rise to 17 percent by 2060, according to figures from the OECD. But recycling more will not address a major issue: after being recycled once or twice, most plastics come to a dead end. "There's a myth with plastic recycling that if the quality is good enough the plastics can be recycled back into plastic bottles," says Natalie Fee, the founder of City to Sea, a UK-based environmental charity. "But as it goes through the system, it becomes lower- and lower-grade plastic. It's down-cycled into things like drain pipes or sometimes fleece clothing. But those items can't be recycled afterwards."

It is therefore difficult to make the case that recycled plastic is a sustainable material, said Graham Forbes, Global Plastics Campaign leader at Greenpeace USA, in a statement this week. "Plastics have no place in a circular economy. It's clear that the only real solution to ending plastic pollution is to massively reduce plastic production." And it is impossible for increased recycling to keep pace with the amount of plastic waste being produced -- which is expected to almost triple by 2060. "There's no way that we can recycle our way out of this," added [Therese Karlsson, science and technical adviser at the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN)]. "Not as it works today. Because today, plastic recycling is not working." "More than two-thirds of UN member states agreed in March last year to develop a legally binding agreement on plastic pollution by 2024, and the second round of meetings to draw up the treaty began on Monday in Paris and will run through Friday," notes the report. "UN Environment Program (UNEP), which is hosting the talks, released a roadmap to reduce plastic waste by 80 percent by 2040."

Karlsson is attending the talks, and she sees reason for hope. "The plastics treaty is an incredible opportunity to protect human health and the environment from plastic pollution. Doing that would mean phasing out toxic chemicals from plastics, ensuring transparency across the plastic life cycle and also decreasing plastic production."

The college graduates who fill white-collar jobs in the San Francisco area began to leave in growing numbers about a decade ago. From a report: More and more have moved to other parts of the country -- an accelerating outflow of educated workers that, in a poorer part of America, might be thought of as brain drain. When the pandemic arrived, these departures surged so sharply that the San Francisco area has lately lost more educated workers than have moved in. Over this same time, a similar pattern has been taking shape on the other side of the country. (Charts in the linked story.) And in the New York area, long a net exporter of graduates, swelling losses have reinforced the trend: Educated workers, dating to even before the pandemic, have been migrating away from the most prosperous parts of the country.

This pattern, visible in an Upshot analysis of census microdata, is startling in retrospect. Major coastal metros have been hubs of the kind of educated workers coveted most by high-powered employers and economic development officials. Economists have lamented the growing coastal concentration of their wealth. A politics of resentment in America has fed on it, too. These urban centers have become a class of their own -- "superstar cities" -- with outsize impact on the American economy fueled by the clustering of workers with degrees. But it appears in domestic migration data that, years after lower-wage residents have been priced out of expensive coastal metros, higher-paid workers are now turning away from them, too.

Working-age Americans with a degree are still flowing into these regions from other parts of the country, often in large numbers. But as the pool leaving grows faster, that educational advantage is eroding. Boston's pull with college graduates has weakened. Seattle's edge vanished during the pandemic. And the analysis shows San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and Washington all crossing a significant threshold: More college-educated workers left than moved in. For most of this century, large metros with a million residents or more have received all of the net gains from college-educated workers migrating around the country, at the expense of smaller places. But among those large urban areas, the dozen metros with the highest living costs -- nearly all of them coastal -- have had a uniquely bifurcated migration pattern: As they saw net gains from college graduates, they lost large numbers of workers without degrees.

The Biden administration is considering creating a government-run alternative to TurboTax and H&R Block, drawing resistance from Republicans and companies fearing a loss of business. From a report: Democrats and consumer advocates have been pushing for the Internal Revenue Service to offer free online tax filing on its website, particularly for people with straightforward returns. Their core argument: Tax-preparation companies charge middle-income Americans for what advocates think should be a free public service.

The companies, meanwhile, are boosting lobbying spending and leaning on lawmakers to fight a change that could shrink their revenue, and they are emphasizing free options already available for taxpayers. They see the changes under consideration as a first step toward an even bigger threat in which the IRS could use information it gets from employers and other sources to prepare a first draft of taxpayers' returns for them. The IRS is due to release a report this week on a possible Direct File system -- think TurboTax but on the agency's website -- and the Biden administration will then decide whether to pursue it.

The top US cryptocurrency enforcement tsar is promising a crackdown on illicit behaviour on digital platforms, saying the scale of crypto crime has grown "significantly" in the past four years. From a report: The Department of Justice is targeting crypto exchanges along with the "mixers and tumblers" that obscure the trail of transactions, Eun Young Choi, who was appointed director of the agency's national cryptocurrency enforcement team last year, told the Financial Times in an interview. The DoJ is targeting companies that commit crimes themselves or allow them to happen, such as enabling money laundering, she said. "But on top of that, they're allowing for all the other criminal actors to easily profit from their crimes and cash out in ways that are obviously problematic to us," she added. "And so we hope that by focusing on those types of platforms, we're going to have a multiplier effect."

Choi said the focus on platforms would "send a deterrent message" to businesses that are skirting anti-money laundering or client identification rules, and who were not investing in solid compliance and risk mitigation procedures. Choi heads a new unit focused on criminal misuse of digital assets as the US under the administration of President Joe Biden has emerged as one of the jurisdictions with the toughest stance on crypto worldwide. "We're seeing the scale and the scope of digital assets being used in a variety of illicit ways grow significantly over the last, say, four years," she said. "I think that is concurrent with the increase of its adoption by the public writ large."

An anonymous reader shares a report: A passenger walks up to an airport security checkpoint, slips an ID card into a slot and looks into a camera atop a small screen. The screen flashes "Photo Complete" and the person walks through -- all without having to hand over their identification to the TSA officer sitting behind the screen. It's all part of a pilot project by the Transportation Security Administration to assess the use of facial recognition technology at a number of airports across the country. "What we are trying to do with this is aid the officers to actually determine that you are who you say who you are," said Jason Lim, identity management capabilities manager, during a demonstration of the technology to reporters at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

The effort comes at a time when the use of various forms of technology to enhance security and streamline procedures is only increasing. TSA says the pilot is voluntary and accurate, but critics have raised concerns about questions of bias in facial recognition technology and possible repercussions for passengers who want to opt out. The technology is currently in 16 airports. In addition to Baltimore, it's being used at Reagan National near Washington, D.C., airports in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Jose, and Gulfport-Biloxi and Jackson in Mississippi. However, it's not at every TSA checkpoint so not every traveler going through those airports would necessarily experience it.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The U.S. government is seeking to turn metro areas in middle America into the next hot spots of tech innovation with an initial $500 million investment. The Department of Commerce announced Friday its first notice of funding opportunity, or NOFO, for the Regional Technology and Innovation Hub program, known as Tech Hubs. It kicks off the process for eligible groups around the country to apply to be designated as Tech Hubs. That designation gives them the chance to take advantage of the funds to make their regions attractive places for entrepreneurs and technologists to live and work.

Congress authorized $10 billion for the program between fiscal years 2023 and 2027, of which $500 million is available to be distributed this year. Under the current funding opportunity, a total of $15 million in planning grants will be made available to applicants designated as Tech Hubs. Later this year, the Department will seek to award five to 10 designated Tech Hubs grants of $50 million to $75 million each to help build out capacity in their region, according to a Department of Commerce official. President Joe Biden requested $4 billion be made available for Tech Hubs in next year's budget.

Eligible applicants are groups made up of at least one entity from each of the following categories: a higher education institution, subdivision of local or state government, industry or firm in relevant tech or manufacturing field, economic development group, and labor organization or workforce training group. Under the statute, Tech Hubs should focus on a specific set of key areas of technology, which include artificial intelligence, robotics, natural disaster prevention, biotechnology, cybersecurity, energy efficiency and more. The department must designate at least 20 Tech Hubs under the law. The hope is that the infusion of funds will help regions across the country become essential centers of innovation and create more well-paying jobs across a greater swath of the nation. "America leads the world in technological innovation. But the sad reality is that our tech ecosystem is extremely concentrated," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters on a briefing call Thursday, noting that 80% of U.S. venture capital money is invested in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Northeast and Southern California. "There's so much more potential for tech innovation all across the country. In the U.S. we have the best research institutions in the world. That's indisputable. And frankly, many of them are in America's heartland, far from the coast."

"President Biden is so clear on one point, which is that everyone in America deserves a fair shot at economic opportunity, no matter where they live, and they shouldn't have to move in order to get a good job," Raimondo said. "Nobody should have to leave their family or support system or network to move to New York or San Francisco just to get a good job."