The Weekly Wrap for Saturday, 31 March 2018

Before we begin this edition of The Weekly Wrap, We'd like to bring two things to your attention: First, we highly recommend this fabulous conversation between our CEO and founder Gautam Mishra, and Antony Funnell on Australia's Radio National. Secondly, the entire inkl team would like to congratulate and thank Joe G. who this week read his 10,000th article on inkl. We're thrilled that our readers use inkl to stay informed, and absolutely ecstatic about this wonderful milestone. And now, for this week's Deep Dive... DEEP DIVE It's been a huge week in the field of self-driving cars. As with any revolutionary technology, self-driving cars seem to have a gravitational pull that bends the rest of the world towards their path. And on that path we find the collision (no pun intended) of computer science, ethics, public health, transport regulation, corporate cash and the law.  Both the detractors and the proponents of this new technology have had plenty to talk about this week. The offending Uber Technologies Volvo at the site of the collision. PHOTO: Reuters Elaine Herzberg was the first pedestrian to be killed by a self-driving car but she likely won't be the last. Just two weeks after she was hit by a self-driving Uber Volvo SUV the tech giant has settled with the Herzberg family out of court. A lawyer representing the family issued a short statement that there would be no further comment. It was clear from the outset that the trial lawyers were preparing to attack Uber's eagerness to test possibly-incomplete technologies. So regardless of the amount paid, Uber has likely avoided enormous potential damage from having the case heard in open court. But in protecting itself Uber might also just have kicked the can down the road. The case has revealed a knotty legal argument concerning self-driving cars and liability. If, as has been argued, an attentive human driver could have avoided the question, who is at fault? The car manufacturer? The company that owns it? The computer engineers who calibrated the sensors? Or the inattentive test driver who was revealed to have been looking away from the road in the moments before the crash? The death has shaken the industry, with local politicians, carmakers and tech companies alike calling for a slow-down in testing unproven technology. That slow-down is being heeded by Nvidia Corp, a tech company that has developed a suite of processors to be used in driverless vehicles. Although early speculation about faulty sensors was pointed at Nvidia, the company quickly fired back saying that only its Graphics Processing Units were used in Uber's self-driving cars, not it sensors. Regardless, Nvidia's chairman announced that it would suspend all self-driving tests immediately. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey also moved promptly to strip Uber of the right to test self-driving cars on public roads. But behind this swift and sensible decision is an uncomfortable truth. Leaked emails reveal a long courtship between Ducey and Uber. It's clear that Ducey was keen to expedite Uber's testing process in Arizona; questions are now being asked whether his haste allowed for incomplete regulatory oversight of the tests. While this could lead to embarrassing findings, Ducey is by no means the only lawmaker in America or elsewhere doing favours for tech giants. But lest you think that our self-driving future is now reversing at speed, elsewhere in the industry good news has been easy to find. This week Alphabet's self-driving offshoot Waymo inked a ground-breaking deal with Jaguar. The deal will see Waymo integrate its technology into 20,000 I-Pace electric SUVs built by Jaguar. Testing will begin this year and Waymo is expecting to see all the vehicles become part of its self-driving ride-hailing company set to launch in 2020. Needless to say this is yet another blow to Uber. An interesting statistic (and one we'll be keeping a close eye one) surfaced this week: in America 1.18 people die per 100 million miles driven. Uber's self-driving vehicles have claimed the life of a pedestrian after just 3 million miles tested. While this certainly isn't an accurate predictor of self-driving cars' potential to be a life-saving force in the future, it seems we're not there yet. So what's concerning is the headlong rush into lucrative new technologies that often sees companies cutting corners to attain a competitive edge.  WORLDLYWISE Turning over a new leaf. PHOTO: Reuters / KCNA On the 27th of July 1953 a ceasefire was signed between North and South Korea. A shattered Seoul had been lost and recaptured during the war and Pyongyang was turned to a wasteland of charred rubble by American napalm. Well over three million Koreans were dead - more than 10% of the population. Now, for the first time in a generation, a lasting peace between North and South Korea may finally be on the cards. On April 27th Kim Jong-un will become his country's first leader to cross the demilitarised zone separating the two bristling neighbours. The young, brash leader will meet his opposite, Moon Jae-in at the 'Peace House' in Panmunjom, a traditional meeting point for negotiators. Both sides have signalled an intention to pursue a complete peace agreement (the two countries are technically still at war) and the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. It's believed that if this meeting is a success it will be followed by direct talks between Kim and US President Donald Trump. Naturally, there is a great deal of scepticism flying about. Previous negotiations between North and South in 2000 and then again in 2007 broke down. Given that nuclear weapons have been the lynchpin of Pyongyang's defence policy for decades any talks to remove them would come with numerous strings attached. While all the focus is on the future meeting between two of the world's most bombastic leaders, Chinese President Xi Jinping is the one looking likely to be the most valuable player. His ostensibly secret meeting with Kim in Beijing this week precipitated the announced talks. If Beijing gets within a mile of its goal - seeing US military bases drawn down in South Korea - it would be the most potent symbol yet of Chinese regional ascendency. A family torn apart by the Valencia prison disaster. PHOTO: Al Jazeera In Venezuela's third city of Valencia an attempted prison-break caused a conflagration that has so far claimed 68 lives. Hundreds of prisoners crammed into squalid, makeshift cells at a police station rioted on Thursday; setting mattresses alight in an attempt to escape. Scores were incinerated as the fire swept through the building. The extent of the tragedy was felt yesterday when relatives of the dead demonstrated outside police facilities. Shockingly, their demands for answers were met with teargas.  Venezuela's jails were overcrowded even before the recent economic collapse and civil unrest, but now they are at breaking point. Police stations were co-opted into detention facilities and crammed full of criminals, proven or otherwise. Local prisoners' rights activists believe that the police prisons are 300% over capacity.  Elsewhere, thousands protested against corruption in the aftermath of the Kemerovo inferno that killed 65 people - including 40 children - this week. In the Siberian city a fire began inside a shopping centre complex and quickly spread into a nearby cinema. Those trying to escape discovered that fire escapes were inexplicably blocked and fire alarms weren't working. Russian President Vladimir Putin ascribed blame to criminal negligence, although that line hasn't been swallowed by locals who see tragedies like this as a direct result of Russia's run-of-the-mill corruption. WHAT ELSE HAPPENED The US consulate in St. Petersburg is set to be closed. PHOTO: AFP / Getty As Yulia Skripal's health improved, Russo-American relations worsened: Moscow responded to the historic expulsion of its staff by various countries and ejected 150 Western diplomats Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been returned to office with 92% of the vote in a widely-ridiculed election that featured no real opposition and cash-for-vote scandals Uber's playbook for aggressive expansion and retreat from foreign markets continued as it announced that it ceded Southeast Asia in exchange for 27.5% of local rival Grab Adult entertainer Stormy Daniels continued her campaign against US President Donald Trump with a record-breaking 60 Minutes interview and more legal proceedings Further revelations showed the extent of Facebook's data-harvesting; the company's market cap has shrunk by $100b since the beginning of the scandal Oil and gas giant ExxonMobil suffered another setback in its rearguard action against New York and Massachusetts climate change litigation Both Atlanta and Baltimore's civic institutions were struck by hackers who held internet-connected services hostage and demanded payment in cryptocurrency The detention of the exiled Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont by German authorities provoked street demonstrations across the restive province Cricket Australia banned the country's captain and vice captain for a year over the much-publicised ball-tampering scandal; a junior player received a lighter sentence and the coach has resigned In the midst of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's publicity tour of America, a judge ruled that the Kingdom can be sued for its part in aiding the 9/11 terror attacks THE BEST OF TIMES... An extraordinary find in the Amazon. PHOTO: University of Exeter / PA In the upper Tapajos Basin deforestation has become an unlikely helper to archaeologists from the University of Exeter. Using satellite imagery of newly cleared land in an uncharted region, the researchers found evidence of tens of villages. What's particularly surprising is that an area assumed to have been sparsely populated at the time of European arrival was in fact brimming with people in towns that contained roads, fortifications and large populations. Discoveries like this help dispel colonial-era myths. At what age do we intuit the notion of a 'fair share'. It's a concept that we use everyday when describing a plate full of food or the amount of criticism to be allotted to a politician. At its heart, a fair share - or distributive justice - is the internalisation of behaviour that facilitates coexistence and solidarity. And according to a new study, we learn this by the tender age of 17-months-old. Academics in New Zealand have applied modern psychology to toddlers who watched rewards being distributed unequally (lollies) to actors (puppets) after a shared effort. Maybe the better question is, at what point do we forget this? THE WORST OF TIMES... Antibiotic use is soaring in the developing world. PHOTO: Getty Health specialists have sounded the alarm over the soaring use of antibiotics worldwide, and the rising threat of antibiotic-resistant superbugs. A new study reveals a 65% uptick in the use of these crucial drugs between 2000 and 2015. At the same time, it's believed that as many as one in five prescriptions for them in the UK may be unnecessary. This comes in the same week that British authorities admitted that a local man has contracted a completely drug-resistant strain of gonorrhoea. The funeral of a black man shot by police in Sacramento has again highlighted the dangers that non-whites face when dealing with the police. 22-year-old Stephon Clark was gunned down earlier in the month by police who thought he was carrying a weapon. It was an iPhone. Body camera footage shows police responding to a separate incident chase and then fire 20 rounds at the unarmed Clark. His death has been marked by a string of demonstrations decrying police brutality.  P.S. Your weekend long read... In this meandering, delightful (and very long) piece the Financial Times poses the question: Why are Germans so obsessed with saving money? What we're reading... We're finally getting around to all those books stacked up after Christmas. What can we say about Lincoln in the Bardo? Little more than the facts: George Saunders won last year's Man Booker for it. It's sublime. That's it from the inkl team this week. Have a safe and enjoyable Easter (if you are that way inclined). Cheers, Tom.