Your WIRED daily briefing. Today, scientists have appealed to the Mexican government to help protect the last 30 vaquita porpoises, Lenovo's Moto C smartphone will cost just £90, a judge has ordered Uber to return stolen Waymo files.
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Scientists have appealed to the Mexican government to extend a gillnet fishing ban in the hope of preserving the last 30 vaquita porpoises (BBC News). The porpoises are only found in Mexico's Gulf of California, between the mainland and the Baja peninsula. Gillnets have been banned since 2015 as part of an attempt to protect the vaquitas, although the law has been ignored by some fishers seeking to catch the totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is used in Chinese traditional medicine. The WWF's Chris Gee told BBC News: "We want the gillnet ban enforced and in place permanently, without that we are very sceptical of the situation. It's a difficult situation. Extinction is imminent is nothing is done." He also said that it might be possible to build "a special sea pen that could protect some of them you could see some of them re-introduced when the Gulf is free of gillnets".
Lenovo's Motorola smartphone subsidiary has officially launched its new budget Moto C smartphone, which will cost just £90 in the UK (The Verge). The Moto C has a five-inch 854 x 480 display and 2,350mAh removable battery, while the more capable Moto C Plus, at £120, has a five-inch display with 1280 x 720 resolution and a 4,000mAh removable battery. Both are due to go on sale "this spring".
US District Judge William Alsup has ordered Uber to do "whatever it can to ensure that its employees return 14,000-plus pilfered files to their rightful owner" in a case that has seen the ride-hailing firm accused by Waymo of complicity in the theft of 14,000 files by former Google self-driving car engineer, Anthony Levandowski (Ars Technica). The ruling also bars Levandowski, now the chief of Uber's autonomous car division, from doing any work involving LIDAR technology - a critical element of autonomous vehicle sensing and navigation. However, the ruling hasn't gone entirely Waymo's way, as Judge Alsup also denied the company's request to take the self-driving vehicles in Uber's pilot schemes off the road.
As many as 40 hospitals, across 24 trusts, have been affected as the NHS cyber attack saga rumbles on. The majority of impacted trusts have resolved their issues but a number, including Barts in London, are warning of further disruption. WIRED has assembled a rundown of the affected trusts, and how services were, or are, being affected.
A key Indian biotechnology regulator has declared a genetically modified mustard plant "safe for consumption", marking a key step towards its approval for agricultural use in the country (Science). The transgenic mustard was developed by plant scientist Deepak Pental of the University of Delhi, whose publicly-funded project introduced genes from soil bacterium Bacillus amyloliquefaciens into the plant to make it easier to create high-yield hybrids - mustard normally reproduces primarily through a process of self-pollination. The decision-making process now moves on to India's environment minister, who has the power to approve Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 (DMH-11) for use by farmers, but may delay until India's Supreme Court rules on a number of cases concerning the safety of GM crops, which have been pending since 2005 and still have no fixed date by which a decision is expected.
WIRED Money 2017 brings together the innovators, inventors and entrepreneurs defining the future of the finance industry. Join us at Studio Spaces in London on May 18.
A Bank of Japan survey has revealed that the country's medium-sized companies are investing in robots to make up for labour shortages resulting from an ageing population and low levels of immigration (VentureBeat). Companies with share capital of 100 million yen to 1 billion yen indicated that they plan to boost investment in automation by 17.5 per cent over the course of the current fiscal year - the highest level yet recorded. Jobs that will see the entry of robotic workforces include manufacturing, earthmoving and guest services at hotels.
Ocado's 90,000-square-metre warehouse is the starting point for 190,000 customer deliveries every week (WIRED. Inside, more than 35 kilometres of conveyor belts shuttle plastic crates between storage shelves and picking area. WIRED's exclusive video footage reveals the path taken by 50,000 products from their arrival at the warehouse, to the moment they head for delivery to the online grocery store's customers. Chief technology officer Paul Clarke reveals that from the moment an item arrives in the warehouse, a human never touches it until it's placed into a shopping bag just minutes before it goes out for delivery.
ZeniMax, the gaming giant that owns id Software and Bethesda Softworks, has filed a lawsuit against Samsung, saying that its Gear VR headset uses technology that infringes on ZeniMax trade secrets (Polygon). Earlier this year, a US court found that Oculus CTO John Carmack had taken technology he'd developed at id Software with him when he moved to the VR firm. Now, the finding is being used against Samsung, which uses Oculus software to run its Gear VR mobile virtual reality headset.
DC Comics' chief creative officer Geoff Johns has revealed that he's written a stand-alone miniseries that brings Doctor Manhattan, of Alan Moore's Watchmen, face-to-face with Superman (io9). Speaking to Blastr, Johns describes the new comic, Doomsday Clock, as "Watchmen colliding with the DC Universe". Doomsday Clock, drawn by Gary Frank, will be released this November.
Influential rhythm game creators, Masaya Matsuura (PaRappa The Rapper, Vib-Ribbon) and Keiichi Yano (Gitaroo Man, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan) have launched a Kickstarter campagin for a new game with the working title of Project Rap Rabbit (VG24/7). A promo video gives a taste of the game's audio and visual aesthetic, which are framed around a fictionalised version of 16th century Japan, in which out rabbit hero, Toto-Maru, must use his rapping skills to influence the fate of the world. Assuming it raises the $1.1 million it's after, game is set to come out on PC and PS4 by August 2018
The human brain is incredibly complex and there's still so much we don't know about it. To bring together some of the missing puzzle pieces, the Developing Human Connectome Project – involving the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, Kings College London, and funded by the EU – have been scanning the brains of foetuses and newborn babies. Here are the images that have been released so far.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
