The War-Crazy Gambit; Monitoring Russian Warships; Executive Ordering of the Universe; Determining Baby Gender Illegally; Slow Race; Laundry Folder; Learning With Fellow Robots; and Insert Picture, Find Face

Russia

Putin, Syria, and Why Moscow Has Gone War-Crazy newyorker

A viewer of Russian television this week could be forgiven for thinking that the end of the world was imminent, and that it would arrive in the form of grand superpower war with the United States, culminating in a suicidal exchange of nuclear weapons. On one day alone, three separate test firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles were broadcast on state media: two by submarine, one from a launch pad in the Far East. Last weekend, NTV, a channel under effective state control, aired a segment on emergency preparedness that included a tour of a Cold War-era bomb shelter, fortified in case of atomic war, and a mention of the municipal loudspeakers that will sound upon the arrival of “Hour X.” On Sunday, Dmitry Kiselev, the most bombastic and colorful of Kremlin propagandists, warned on his weekly newsmagazine show that “impudent behavior” toward Russia may have “nuclear” consequences.

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Russian warships to sail through Channel amid Syria tensions with UK theguardian

The navy said it and Nato routinely monitor other nations’ fleets when they enter UK waters, but the voyage comes amid western anger at Russia’s alleged complicity in bombing civilians.

The row has fuelled concerns that Russia will use the naval journey as a show of military strength, with reports suggesting fighter jets may launch drills from the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier.

Politics

Obama expands his executive power beyond Earth usatoday

Like many executive orders, Obama's directive instructs executive branch agencies on their responsibilities in preparing and responding to space weather events. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy whitehouse.gov will coordinate the efforts of agencies across the government, including Defense, Commerce, Energy and NASA, which will work together to improve their ability to forecast space weather events and protect critical infrastructure from their effects.

Obama's executive order also made public for the first time the existence of a previously unknown secret policy directive he signed on July 15. Presidential Policy Directive 40 established a new national continuity policy that defined the "national essential functions" of the federal government. Such directives, known as PPDs, are an often secret form of executive order in the realm of national security.

China

China arrests over illegal network determining baby gender bbc

The illegal service - aimed at expectant parents wanting male children - smuggled fetal blood samples to Hong Kong for gender testing, officials say.

Despite decades of campaigning, Chinese families, particularly in rural areas, continue to prize boys above girls.

Automated World

Roborace shows how hard it is to make a self-driving racing series theverge v

Today, the series released the first episode in what will be an ongoing documentary series that offers a behind the scenes look at the work going into making Roborace roborace a reality. It’s the first peek behind the curtain of Roborace, and it doesn't shy away from showing the difficulties in bringing an autonomous racing series to life. This episode is about engineers dealing with a battery failure, which ultimately led to them scrapping a planned demonstration.

Robot Folds Your Laundry for You voanews v

These industrial robots teach each other new skills while we sleep recode.net

Fanuc fanuc.eu, maker of the industrial robots used to assemble Apple’s iPhone and cars for Volkswagen and Tesla, is now partnering with Nvidia to add the company’s graphics processing units to its massive machines.

Nvidia’s graphics processing units and deep-learning technology will be used to help Fanuc robots recognize, process and respond to the environment around them. It’s especially important for reinforcement learning, which is how machines use artificial intelligence to adopt new skills through practice.

AI

Russian startup plans commercial launch of scarily accurate facial recognition tech digitaltrends

NTechLab ntechlab is only a year old, but the Russian startup is making headlines with its controversial facial recognition technology. The company rocketed to the top of this nascent industry when it beat Google in the “MegaFace” facial recognition competition held last year in Washington state. With 30 successful tests under its belt and 300 pending orders, the company is ready to take its facial recognition system to the world.