Techlife News – June 10 2017

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THE PROS AND CONS OF PRIVATIZING AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL 06
TAKEOFF AND CRUISE: TOYOTA MAKING ‘FLYING CAR,’ LUXURY BOAT 16
VERIZON’S FIRST MOVE WITH YAHOO IS TO DITCH 2,100 JOBS 26
AUTONOMOUS CARS (NO HUMAN BACKUP) MAY HIT THE ROAD NEXT YEAR 36
UBER, LYFT SERVICE IN UPSTATE NY, LONG ISLAND STARTS JUNE 29 40
Q&A: INTERNET EXTREMISM AND HOW TO COMBAT IT 44
SYSTEM AIMS TO RECREATE CHALLENGING MOUNTAIN CLIMBS IN GYM 54
WWDC 2017: THE BIGGEST ANNOUNCEMENTS 62
LEGAL EXPERTS TO TRUMP ON TRAVEL BAN: TWITTER HURTING CAUSE 82
TWITTER USERS, BLOCKED BY TRUMP, CRY CENSORSHIP 90
LEAKED NSA REPORT HIGHLIGHTS DEEP FLAWS IN US ELECTIONS 96
3 CHALLENGES TESLA FACES AS SHAREHOLDERS MEET 104
AMAZON OFFERS PRIME DISCOUNT TO THOSE ON GOVERNMENT BENEFITS 112
iTUNES REVIEW 116
BOX OFFICE TOP 20: ‘WONDER WOMAN’ REVISED UP TO $103.3M 132
‘WONDER WOMAN’ IS A HIT THAT EVEN HOLLYWOOD CAN’T IGNORE 142
ON ‘ORANGE,’ NICK SANDOW EXCELS BY MORE THAN A WHISKER 152
IN ‘THE MUMMY,’ TOM CRUISE DANCES WITH THE UNDEAD 160
SPACE STATION WELCOMES 1ST RETURNING VEHICLE SINCE SHUTTLE 168
NASA PICKS 12 NEW ASTRONAUTS FROM CRUSH OF APPLICANTS 176
DRUGS SCORE BIG WINS AGAINST LUNG, PROSTATE, BREAST CANCERS 184
IN BEIJING, PERRY PROMOTES US-CHINA CLEAN ENERGY COOPERATION 190
COMPANION ROBOTS FEATURED AT SHANGHAI ELECTRONICS SHOW 196
ABC IS OFF AND RUNNING WITH NBA FINALS 198
S. KOREA’S EX-HEALTH MINISTER GUILTY OF SWAYING SAMSUNG VOTE 202
NORTH KOREA, CYBERATTACKS AND ‘LAZARUS’: WHAT WE REALLY KNOW 204
AS GULF TENSIONS FLARE, REPORTS OF HACKING POUR IN 220
5 WORKERS EXPOSED TO RADIATION AT JAPAN NUCLEAR LAB 222

6

THE PROS
AND CONS OF
PRIVATIZING AIR
TRAFFIC CONTROL
The U.S. air traffic control system, the world’s
largest and most complex, is in the midst of an
era of unsurpassed safety. There has not been a
fatal crash of a domestic passenger airliner in the
U.S. in eight years.
Now President Donald Trump is looking to
shift responsibility for the system from the
government to a private, nonprofit corporation
run by airlines and other aviation interests. The
handover of about 300 airport towers and other
flight tracking centers would be one of the largest
transfers of U.S. government assets. About 35,000
workers, including 14,000 controllers and 6,000
technicians, would be affected.
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Privatization supporters, including some
Republican lawmakers, say it would improve
efficiency and modernize the air-traffic system.
But congressional approval isn’t certain. Some
lawmakers in both parties are reluctant to
give up oversight. Some politically influential
business aircraft operators, private pilots, small
aircraft manufacturers and medium- and smallsized
airports fear airlines will dominate the
corporation’s board, resulting in higher fees for
them and less service.
There are also concerns about whether the air
traffic system would suffer during the transition.
Some questions and answers about what’s
at stake:
WHY MESS WITH A GOOD THING?
The idea is to remove air traffic control from
the vagaries of the government budget
process, which has limited the Federal Aviation
Administration’s ability to commit to longterm
contracts and raise money for major
expenditures.
That’s hampered the agency’s “NextGen”
program to modernize the air traffic
system by switching from radar and radio
communications to GPS surveillance and
digital voice and text communications.
Recent controller furloughs and government
shutdowns have worsened the problem.
WHAT IS THE SITUATION IN
OTHER COUNTRIES?
Many countries have created governmentowned
corporations, independent government
agencies or quasi-governmental entities.
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Canada is the only country to create what is
clearly a private nonprofit air-traffic corporation.
NavCanada can raise private capital, make longterm
financial commitments, and it recently
lowered the fees it charges airlines.
But the nonpartisan Congressional Research
Service reported last month that there appears
to be no conclusive evidence that any of those
approaches is better or worse than governmentrun
services, including the FAA’s, in terms of
productivity, cost-effectiveness, service quality,
and safety and security.
WHO WANTS TO DO THIS?
The U.S. airline industry has been campaigning
since the 1980s to privatize air traffic control
to try to gain greater control over the system,
reduce their costs and replace airline passenger
ticket taxes with user fees based on takeoffs,
landings and other operations. The Clinton
administration proposed spinning off air traffic
operations into a government corporation but
ran into congressional opposition.
House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Penn., has
proposed using NavCanada as a model. But he
couldn’t win enough support to bring legislation
to the House floor last year, and he faced
even greater opposition in the Senate. Trump
administration officials have cited Shuster’s bill
as a starting point for their efforts.
Shuster received $148,499 in airline industry
campaign contributions last year, making
him the industry’s top recipient in the House,
according to the political money tracking site
Opensecrets.org.
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IS NEXTGEN IN TROUBLE?
The FAA has been working for more than a
decade on NextGen. Early on, it predicted the
program would be completed by 2025, but
officials now describe NextGen as an evolving
effort with no end date.
The National Academy of Sciences reported
in 2015 that the original vision for NextGen of
transforming the air traffic system has devolved
into a series of incremental changes that
primarily emphasize replacing aging equipment
and systems.
But FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said
recently the agency has made “tremendous
progress” revamping the system with the
latest technology, and is poised to switch
from ground-based radar to GPS surveillance.
The switch is expected to save time and fuel
and lower greenhouse gas emissions. Huerta
has predicted $13 billion in benefits to the
government and aircraft operators by 2020, with
greater gains after that.
Calvin Scovel, the Transportation Department’s
inspector general and a frequent NextGen
critic, recently told the House transportation
committee that even though the program hasn’t
met expectations, it’s not broken.
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WOULD PRIVATIZATION HELP?
Privatization supporters complain that the
FAA’s procurement process is so cumbersome
that new equipment is no longer the latest
technology by the time it’s acquired. Also, delays
in updating landing and takeoff procedures to
incorporate technological advances make the
system less efficient. Airlines say that costs them
billions of dollars in flight delays each year.
A corporation would be free of such
government regulations and could act faster
and with more flexibility, supporters say. The
FAA would still provide safety oversight.
Opponents say there’s no evidence a
corporation run by airlines would do a better
job. Major U.S. airlines have suffered massive
computer outages in recent years that have
roiled air travel.
WHERE DO AIR TRAFFIC
CONTROLLERS STAND?
Their union, the National Air Traffic Controllers
Association, endorsed Shuster’s bill after
winning assurances that controller wages,
benefits and collective bargaining rights would
be protected. Union leaders say controllers are
tired of working with outdated equipment and
are concerned about government shutdowns
and furloughs.
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TAKEOFF AND
CRUISE: TOYOTA
MAKING ‘FLYING
CAR,’ LUXURY BOAT
Toyota Motor Corp. is working on a “flying car.”
A startup backed by the Japanese automaker
has developed a test model that engineers hope
will eventually develop into a tiny car with a
driver who’ll be able to light the Olympic torch
in the 2020 Tokyo games. For now, however, the
project is a concoction of aluminum framing and
eight propellers that barely gets off the ground
and crashes after several seconds.
Toyota has invested 42.5 million yen ($386,000)
in startup Cartivator Resource Management to
work on “Sky Drive”. At a test flight last weekend
in the city where the automaker is based, the
gadgetry, about the size of a car and loaded with
batteries and sensors, blew up a lot of sand and
made a lot of noise.
Image: Tetsuya
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It managed to get up as high as eye level for
several seconds before tilting and falling to
the ground. Basketballs attached to its bottom
served as cushions. After several attempts, the
endeavor had to be canceled after one of the
covers got detached from the frame and broke,
damaging the propellers.
The goal of Cartivator’s is to deliver a seamless
transition from driving to flight, like the world
of “Back to the Future,” said the project’s leader
Tsubasa Nakamura.
“I always loved planes and cars. And my
longtime dream was to have a personal vehicle
that can fly and go many places,” he told The
Associated Press.
The group is now working on a better design
with the money from Toyota with the plan to
have the first manned flight in 2019. No one
has ridden on Sky Drive yet, or any drone, as
that would be too dangerous.
Still, dabbling in businesses other than cars
is Toyota’s trademark. In recent years, it has
been aggressively venturing into robotics
and artificial intelligence, investing a billion
dollars in a research and development
company in Silicon Valley. It’s also working
in Japan on using robotics to help the sick
walk. It also just announced a five-year $35
million investment in its research center in
Ann Arbor, Michigan, for autonomous and
connected vehicle technologies.
The idea that each generation must take up
challenges is part of Toyota’s roots, said auto
analyst Takaki Nakanishi.
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Image: Koji Ueda
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Image: Koji Ueda

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Image: John Linn

President Akio Toyoda’s great-grandfather
Sakichi Toyoda started out developing the loom
and then its automated improvements from
the 1890s, before the company became an
automaker. More recently, Toyota sees software
and services as central to the auto industry,
as cars become connected, start driving
themselves and turn into lifestyle digital tools,
Nakanishi said.
As Toyota gets into the business of ecological
vehicles, such as hybrids, electric cars and fuel
cells, it’s turning into an energy company as well.
“Toyota’s business is centered on mobility,
anything that moves, including people, things,
money, information, energy,” said Nakanishi.
Toyota is traveling not only in the skies but also
to the waters, although that still remains a tiny
part of its sprawling empire.
Toyota’s boat operations began in 1997. Toyota
now offers four models and has sold a cumulative
845 boats. In contrast, Toyota sells about 10
million vehicles a year around the world.
Reporters recently got a ride in Tokyo Bay of a
Lexus luxury concept “yacht,” which runs on two
gas engines. With a streamlined curvaceous
design, inspired by a dolphin and evocative of
a Lexus car, it’s being promised as a commercial
product in the next few years.
Designed for executives zipping through
resort waters, it comes with fantasy-evoking
features, like an anchor pulled in by a chain
into a tiny door in the bow, which opens then
closes mechanically.
The engine, shiny like a chrome sculpture,
is visible beneath the sheer floor surface.
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Image: John Linn

Shigeki Tomoyama, the executive in charge,
said the boat was going for “a liberating effect.”
A price was not given. Many Americans have
already expressed interest, according to Toyota.
The project started about two years ago
under direct orders from Toyoda, who has
with Tomoyama spearheaded Toyota’s Gazoo
internet business, another non-auto business
for Toyota.
“He asked us to create a space that can work as
a secret hiding place in the middle of the ocean,”
Tomoyama said. “We went for the wow factor,
which requires no words.”
Online: http://cartivator.com/
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Image: Mark Lennihan

VERIZON’S FIRST
MOVE WITH
YAHOO IS TO
DITCH 2,100 JOBS
About 2,100 jobs are on the chopping block as
Verizon prepares to combine Yahoo and AOL for
a digital advertising offensive.
Yahoo’s shareholders on Thursday approved the
$4.5 billion sale of its key businesses to Verizon.
The deal is expected to close by Tuesday. AOL and
Yahoo will cut 15 percent of the 14,000 workers
they now employ, or about 2,100 jobs, said a
person familiar with the matter who requested
not to be identified discussing the cuts.
USING YAHOO
Verizon has a simple goal in buying Yahoo’s
core business: It wants to challenge Google
and Facebook in the huge and lucrative field
of digital advertising. But Verizon faces its own
challenge in doing so, given that it will be
competing against a slew of other companies
also looking to break in.
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Verizon wants to become a strong third choice
for advertisers by adding Yahoo’s popular sites
and billion users worldwide to its own media
business, which includes AOL and Verizon’s
home-grown go90 video service. It can place
ads on those sites, and can also combine
data from visitors to those sites with AOL’s ad
technologies and sales teams, and possibly also
personal data from Verizon mobile customers
such as location and other information, in order
to better target ads at individuals.
Verizon has programs that use mobile-customer
data for targeted ads and may combine that with
data gathered by AOL and Yahoo. Verizon says
customers can choose whether to participate.
Yahoo and AOL are “positioned to do better
together than apart,” Pivotal Research Group
analyst Brian Wieser said.
But he is setting the bar low. While Verizon talks of
growth from the deal, Wieser said “not declining
would be a success. Five years from now, if the
combined entity were the same size as it is today,
I would consider that to be successful.”
THE VISION
Verizon sees online ads - particularly targeted
ads - as a potential new source of growth as
the wireless industry fights for U.S. users with
lower prices and other discounts. Verizon has
“essentially turned into a no-growth business,”
said CFRA Research’s Angelo Zino. The ad
business would be a “big deal” for Verizon if it
goes well, he said.
Tim Armstrong, the former Google executive
who joined AOL as CEO in 2009, has for years
wanted to combine AOL with the long-declining
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Yahoo. Although AOL has big-name properties
such as HuffPost and Engadget, it hasn’t been
as big of an online destination as Yahoo’s mail,
finance, sports and other properties.
The combined business, to be called Oath,
will expand its news, sports, entertainment,
finance and lifestyle coverage. Like everyone
else, Oath will focus on video and mobile, where
consumers increasingly spend their time online.
Armstrong says he wants Oath properties to
be a place consumers “come and visit every
day” and predicts users growing to 2 billion
from 1.3 billion by 2020, with annual revenue
of $10 billion to $20 billion from roughly
$7 billion today.
Lowell McAdam, CEO of New York-based Verizon,
teased last month that this could set the stage for
a new streaming video service, competing with
the slew of internet-TV services already out there.
Verizon already has a free mobile video service,
go90, that isn’t well known.
ALTERNATIVES TO THE DUOPOLY
Facebook and Google together draw about half
the world’s spending on digital ads, and in the
U.S., they’re even more dominant. They’re also
where the majority of mobile-ad dollars go,
eMarketer data show.
The sway Facebook and Google hold for
advertisers isn’t expected to change in the next
few years. They had a head start on mobile.
Yahoo has poured billions into acquisitions that
have helped Yahoo make some leeway in mobile
- but not enough. It’s gotten better at doing
mobile ads, but it has had no major hit apps.
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Still, AOL and Yahoo together provide a muchsmaller
No. 3 in the U.S. for advertisers looking to
reach lots of people. But even if Verizon’s goal is
to just be happy at No. 3, there are several much
smaller players that also draw advertisers.
Snapchat is a niche hit with young people.
Amazon has an under-the-radar ad business that
supports its e-commerce dominance. Microsoft,
which owns LinkedIn, is expected to grow its
piece of the ad pie; Microsoft will be just behind
the combined AOL-Yahoo in the U.S. once the
deal closes. Twitter, although it’s sorting out
its ad business, is a significant smaller player.
Globally, several Chinese companies also rake in
ad dollars.
And the combined company will also have to
compete for people’s attention, and not just with
other services that rely on ad dollars to survive.
Popular sites like Amazon or Netflix also suck
up time spent online, said eMarketer analyst
Martin Utreras.
“They’ve acquired these two dinosaurs and you
kind of wonder, can they be successful?” Zino
said. That will depend on Verizon being able to
convince marketers that they know more about
consumers than anyone else, he said.
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Image: Elise Amendola
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36

AUTONOMOUS
CARS (NO HUMAN
BACKUP) MAY
HIT THE ROAD
NEXT YEAR
Autonomous vehicles with no human backup
will be put to the test on publicly traveled roads
as early as next year in what may be the first
attempt at unassisted autonomous piloting.
Automotive electronics and parts maker Delphi
and French transport company Transdev plan to
use autonomous taxis and a shuttle van to carry
passengers on roadways in France.
The companies on Wednesday said they plan to
combine Delphi’s self-driving technology with
Transdev’s knowledge of mobility operations.
Transdev operates trains, buses, ferries and
other transportation services in 19 countries,
including the U.S.
Two on-demand Renault Zoe autonomous taxis
will be deployed in Rouen, Normandy, and a
shuttle van will run between a rail station and
campus in the university district of Paris-Saclay.
Both will start with humans on board later this
year, with the intent of going fully autonomous
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sometime in 2018. From the start, the shuttle
van won’t have a steering wheel or pedals, and
humans will be inside solely to communicate
with passengers, said Leriche, chief performance
officer at Transdev Group.
But humans at a central dispatch center would
still be able to take control of the vehicles, said
Glen De Vos, Delphi Corp.’s chief technology
officer. “We’re confident that in the event they
would need to intervene, they can,” he said.
The companies also plan a similar test in North
America and are scouting locations, De Vos said.
He believes they’ll go through several iterations
of self-driving software and systems before the
French vehicles are fully operational sometime
in 2019.
Transdev plans to gradually spread the
technology throughout Paris and other cities
that it serves, so the autonomous vehicles will
be on roads along with human drivers.
It may take a while for people to trust the
vehicles enough to use them, but Leriche
said acceptance may not be that hard to get.
Transdev has surveyed users in autonomous
shuttle tests about the service and quality, and
more than 90 percent were excited about the
service. “They were not afraid of the fact that
there was no driver,” he said.
The partnership comes less than a month after
U.K.-based Delphi joined with BMW, Intel and
Mobileye to develop autonomous vehicles.
Delphi, which has U.S. operations just outside
of Detroit, makes the computing platform that
brings together information from the car’s
sensors, cameras and computers.
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UBER, LYFT SERVICE
IN UPSTATE NY,
LONG ISLAND
STARTS JUNE 29
Upstate New York, your Uber is arriving a
little early.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation late
Monday allowing Uber and Lyft to begin service
in cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and
Albany as well as all of Long Island on June 29.
Lawmakers voted earlier this year to allow the
ride-hailing apps to expand after years of being
limited to the New York City area, though the law
also required a 90-day wait to give the companies
and host communities time to prepare.
Uber and Lyft had hoped to begin picking up
passengers upstate before the lucrative and
busy July Fourth weekend, but the required
90-day delay pushed the date to July 9 when
lawmakers and the Democratic governor failed
to reach a deal on a state budget on time.
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Supporters of the accelerated timeframe say
permitting the companies to begin picking up
passengers before Independence Day weekend
likely will give residents and tourists a new
transportation alternative and reduce drunken
driving during the holiday.
“Giving ride-sharing companies the green
light 10 days early in time for the Fourth of July
weekend, when tourism traffic and holiday
celebrations will be at their peak, could be a
true lifesaver,” said state Sen. James Seward, an
Otsego County Republican.
Uber will be ready for the expansion,
according to company spokeswoman Alix
Anfang. Buffalo is now one of the largest
cities in the country without access to the
ride-hailing services that have become
commonplace elsewhere in the nation.
“We can’t wait to bring Uber to upstate and the
suburbs where residents have been demanding
it,” she said.
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Q&A: INTERNET EXTREMISM
AND HOW TO COMBAT IT
In the wake of Britain’s third major attack in three
months, Prime Minister Theresa May called on
governments to form international agreements
to prevent the spread of extremism online.
Here’s a look at extremism on the web, what’s
being done to stop it and what could come next.
Q. What are technology companies doing to
make sure extremist videos and other terrorist
content doesn’t spread across the internet?
A. Internet companies use technology plus
teams of human reviewers to flag and remove
posts from people who engage in extremist
activity or express support for terrorism.
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Google, for example, says it employs thousands
of people to fight abuse on its platforms.
Google’s YouTube service removes any video
that has hateful content or incites violence, and
its software prevents the video from ever being
reposted. YouTube says it removed 92 million
videos in 2015; 1 percent were removed for
terrorism or hate speech violations.
Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Twitter
teamed up late last year to create a shared
industry database of unique digital fingerprints
for images and videos that are produced by
or support extremist organizations. Those
fingerprints help the companies identify and
remove extremist content. After the attack on
Westminster Bridge in London in March, tech
companies also agreed to form a joint group to
accelerate anti-terrorism efforts.
Twitter says in the last six months of 2016,
it suspended a total of 376,890 accounts
for violations related to the promotion of
extremism. Three-quarters of those were found
through Twitter’s internal tools; just 2 percent
were taken down because of government
requests, the company says.
Facebook says it alerts law enforcement if it
sees a threat of an imminent attack or harm to
someone. It also seeks out potential extremist
accounts by tracing the “friends” of an account
that has been removed for terrorism.
Q. Why are technology companies clashing with
governments over extremist communications?
A. Since Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosures
about National Security Agency surveillance,
several tech companies have started encrypting
- that is, scrambling them to thwart spies -
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Image: Artur Debat

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instant messages and other data so tightly
that even the companies can’t read them.
Governments are not happy about that.
After the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino,
California, and again after the Westminster
Bridge attack, the U.S. and U.K. governments
sought access to encrypted messages
exchanged by extremists who carried out
the attacks. Apple and Facebook’s WhatsApp
refused, noting that they didn’t hold the keys
needed to unscramble such messages. Both
governments eventually found other ways to
get the information they wanted.
Some in government - including former FBI
Director James Comey and Democratic Sen.
Dianne Feinstein of California - have argued
that the inability to access encrypted data is a
threat to security. Feinstein has introduced a
bill to force companies to give the government
so-called “backdoor” access to encrypted data
so that investigators could read messages on
these services.
Q. Shouldn’t tech companies be forced to
share encrypted information if it could protect
national security?
A. Weakening encryption won’t make people
safer, says Richard Forno, who directs the
graduate cybersecurity program at the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Terrorists will simply take their communications
deeper underground by developing their own
cyber channels or even reverting to paper notes
sent by couriers, he said.
“It’s playing whack-a-mole,” he said. “The bad
guys are not constrained by the law. That’s why
they’re bad guys.”
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Building backdoors into encryption could
also weaken it in ways that hackers, criminals
and foreign agents could exploit. That could
potentially jeopardize all sorts of vital data, from
personal communications and documents to
bank accounts, credit card transactions, medical
history and other information that people want
to keep private.
But Erik Gordon, a professor of law and business
at the University of Michigan, says society has
sometimes determined that the government
can intrude in ways it might not normally, as in
times of war. He says laws may eventually be
passed requiring companies to share encrypted
data if police obtain a warrant from a judge.
“If we get to the point where we say, ‘Privacy
is not as important as staying alive,’ I think
there will be some setup which will allow the
government to breach privacy,” he said.
Q. Is it really the tech companies’ job to police
the internet and remove content?
A. Tech companies have accepted that this is part
of their mission. In a Facebook post earlier this
year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company was
developing artificial intelligence so its computers
can tell the difference between news stories
about terrorism and terrorist propaganda. “This is
technically difficult as it requires building AI that
can read and understand news, but we need to
work on this to help fight terrorism worldwide,”
Zuckerberg said.
But Gordon says internet companies may not
go far enough, since they need users in order
to sell ads.
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Image: Pau Barrena
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“Think of the hateful stuff that is said. How do
you draw the line? And where the line gets
drawn determines how much money they
make,” he said.
Others say the focus on tech companies
and their responsibilities is misplaced. Ross
Anderson, a professor of security engineering
at the University of Cambridge, says blaming
Facebook or Google for the spread of terrorism
is like blaming the mail system or the phone
company for Irish Republican Army violence 30
years ago. Instead of working together to censor
the internet, Anderson says, governments and
companies should work together to share
information more quickly.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry also worries
about placing too much blame on the internet
instead of the underlying causes of violence.
“The bottom line is that in too many places, in
too many parts of the world, you’ve got a large
gap between governance and people and
between the opportunities those people have,”
Kerry said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
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Image: Carlos Barria

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SYSTEM AIMS
TO RECREATE
CHALLENGING
MOUNTAIN
CLIMBS IN GYM
After spending time in Switzerland studying and
hiking in the Alps, Dartmouth assistant professor
Emily Whiting wanted to relive those climbs
back home.
Upon her return to the United States, she and
a group of colleagues contemplated how they
might recreate the climbs indoors.
Using 3-D modeling and digital fabrication,
the team developed a system that replicates
the hardest stretches of climb, so that it
can be practiced on indoor climbing walls.
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image: Emily Whiting

In a presentation at a human computer
interaction conference last month, the team
demonstrated how they replicated a climb in
Rumney, New Hampshire, and a sandstone crag
near St. George in Utah.
Fellow postdoctoral scholar Ladislav Kavan
did the work out of Utah while Whiting was in
New Hampshire.
The two, along with their team, also wanted
to address problems that vex many seasoned
climbers - the challenges of mastering a route
that might be a world away or one that might
be too fragile to practice on.
“What if you could take the experience of
climbing places like these monuments but
not climb the physical thing, actually bring it
home to your local gym,” Whiting said. “You
would still have the physical experience of
climbing it without causing the erosion and
damage to the location. There is also the
aspect of accessibility, like if this is some place
in Thailand or some remote location and you
want to train for the route.”
Whiting and her colleagues first did a 3-D
reconstruction of a wall using hundreds
of photos at different angles. Then, they
combined that with video showing the
climber’s movements. That data helped the
researchers identify the key parts of the climb,
allowing them to create fabricated holds which
were then attached to a climbing wall.
“When you are climbing it, you’re grasping
onto small portions of it and so we wanted
to determine where rock climbers actually
grabbing onto the rock face,” she said.
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There are plenty of tools in climbing gyms to
practice, including the campus board, a series
of slats that hang on a wall at various angles
so that climbers can practice strength training.
And a few years back, Matyas Luzan replicated
a tough stretch of a climb in Germany - he
crafted the holds from wood and varnished
them to feel like the rocks.
The system that Whiting and Kavan, now at the
University of Utah, came up with might be seen
as an extension of Luzan’s efforts.
Eventually, the researchers envision a system
that could one day ingest photos and video.
A database of outdoor climbs could then
be created, from which holds could be
manufactured and available to climbing gyms.
They also want to improve the texture of the
holds so they feel more like the actual rocks.
And there is the visual component - which
Whiting hopes one day could be solved by
adding virtual reality or projecting images of
the climb to a wall.
The climbers that have given the new system
a try say their outdoor ascent matched their
experience indoors.
“I was kind of blown away at just how precisely
the body movements on the indoor climb
recreated the outdoor movements,” said Billy
Braasch, a Dartmouth grad student and climber
who participated in the study.
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Image: Emily Whiting

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But while Braasch said this could serve as a
good practice tool, he acknowledged it might
not be for everyone.
“One aspect of climbing that I really love is
traveling to a new place and exploring new
terrain,” he said. “There is something special
about being in a new place and testing yourself
against a new climb.”
Mike Morin, the Northeast regional director
of the climbing group Access Fund, who was
not involved in the study, also said the system
has potential. Climbers might find it “novel” to
challenge themselves on iconic routes - or even
those closer to home.
“If you’re a climber in Boston working on the
route at Rumney mentioned in the study, you’d
probably be pretty psyched to be able work on
the movements of the climb during a training
session at your local climbing gym,” he said.
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Image: Christos Mousas
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Apple holds its Worldwide Developer’s
Conference every year, giving thousands of
developers from around the world a chance
to meet with Apple engineers and attend
workshops and software sessions. Between
Monday 5 June and Friday 9 June this year, the
WWDC takes place at the McEnery Convention
Center in San Jose, California.
In keeping with tradition, Apple began the
conference on Monday with a keynote,
detailing several big announcements that
would set the stage for the remainder of the
week. As press invitations were sent out, many
were already deliberating about what would be
unveiled, with expectations rising high for the
latest versions of software macOS and iOS and
potentially new hardware products including
a Siri smart speaker and a new iPad Pro. These
rumors came flooding in, right up until key
executives Craig Federighi, Phil Schiller and
CEO Tim Cook took to the stage to announce
some huge changes. Here are just some of
the highlights.
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THE HomePod SPEAKER
Rumors had been circulating for some time
that Apple would be the next to join the battle
for the best smart home speaker, but no one
would imagine that it would be set to rival not
only the Amazon Echo and Google Home but
also the Sonos home entertainment speakers.
Apple has dubbed this new device the
HomePod, and it uses spatial awareness to
tune and better fill the room with sound
based on its surrounding space. Another
feature that gives it an advantage over its rivals
is ‘Musicologist’ that works with Apple Music
once you’ve asked its built-in Siri to play a
certain track. In true Siri fashion, the speaker will
also respond to any questions you may have
about the artist or album that’s playing, control
smart home devices and check the day’s news
or weather forecast. Available in black or white,
Apple has priced the HomePod at $349 and
plans to ship it to the US, UK, and Australia in
December this year.
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Image: Expert Reviews

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UPDATED SOFTWARE FEATURES
WITH iOS 11
Hundreds of new features, both major and
minor, have been introduced in the latest
version of the operating system that runs the
iPhone and the iPad. While iOS10, which was
released in September last year, tended to
bypass the iPad, the new software includes
a number of features for both beginners and
professional users of the hardware. You are
now able to customize the Dock on the iPad,
providing access to frequently used apps and
documents as well as multitasking functionality
like Split View and Slide Over. A new App
Switcher feature also lets you see all of the apps
you’re using and quickly switch between them.
True to speculation, a new Files app now lets
you access all of your files regardless of whether
they are stored locally, in the iCloud drive or
on other cloud services such as Dropbox and
Google Drive. Further updates for iPad include
system-wide drag and drop and a deeper
integration with Apple Pencil that allows users
to open Notes from the lock screen by just
tapping the Apple Pencil icon that is on display.
On both the iPad and the iPhone, iOS11 has a
refreshed look that focuses on bolder fonts and
other smaller design changes. The redesigned
single-screen Control Center is customizable,
and the new Lock Screen makes it easier to
see notifications.
Siri has gained a more natural voice (both male
and female) that has natural intonation, pitch,
tempo and emphasis and a new Siri translate
feature allows users to now translate English
words into Spanish, French, German, Italian
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and Chinese. The functionality of Apple’s
smart assistant has also improved in the new
software update with on-device learning now
available for more personal experiences and
suggestions based on your use of Safari, Mail,
News, and Messages.
Speaking of Messages, there is now an app
drawer that allows for easier access to stickers
and apps and Apple Pay has been updated to
include a peer-to-peer payment option that
allows money to be sent via iMessage.
Do Not Disturb has been expanded to include
new features to be used while driving, muting all
incoming notifications and letting people know
that you’re on the road. This feature will start
automatically when the device is paired with
your car’s Bluetooth.
As usual, a public beta of iOS11 will be made
available later in the summer, but the final
release isn’t set to roll out until the eagerly
awaited iPhone 8 coming in September.
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ARKit FOR AUGMENTED REALITY APPS
Maybe one of the most exciting announcements
of the keynote was the new API Developer Kit
for augmented reality apps. Some may say
that Apple has kept a low profile in regards
to augmented reality despite CEO Tim Cook
stating last year that it could be huge.
Popular third-party iOS apps have incorporated
AR abilities, but up until now, neither Apple’s
hardware nor software has been built to enable
it until now. ARKit allows developers to create
AR apps and games with built-in features
to make objects look as though they’re
being placed in real space, instead of simply
hovering over it. A demo showed an updated
Pokemon Go app with realistic physics, and a
greater awareness of the camera’s surroundings
and Sir Peter Jackson’s studio Wingnut AR
demonstrated a complex augmented reality
landscape made in Unreal Engine alongside
Unity and SceneKit. It’s said that this will be
released as a game later this year. Executive
Craig Federighi boasted that ARKit will be
available across the entire iOS ecosystem
making it “the largest AR platform in the world.”
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Image: Justin Sullivan
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NEW iPAD PRO MODELS
The new 10.5 inch and 12.9 inch iPad Pro
models are due to ship next week. The 10.5
inch starts at $649 with 64GB of memory or
$779 for a 64GB cellular version, and the 12.9-
inch version starts at $799 for 64GB of storage
and Wi-Fi or $929 for the cellular version with
64GB memory. Both will be powered by the
new A10X six-core CPU, include a 12-core CPU
and support HDR video with a 120Hz refresh
rate making it ideal for integration with the
Apple Pencil as it drops the latency rate to an
impressive 20 milliseconds. What’s more, the
True Tone display is 50 per cent brighter
than earlier models, and both new versions
feature a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera
alongside a 7-megapixel front-facing camera.
Alongside the release of the devices, Apple will
be launching new sleeves and accessories.
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A REFRESHED MAC HARDWARE LINE
The long-awaited iMac desktop and MacBook
laptops are finally here with enhanced
processors and memory power. Apple also
gave us a sneak peak at the new iMac Pro,
specifically designed for pro users, with its
27-inch Retina 5K display, an 18-core Xeon
processor and up to 22 Teraflops of graphics
computation that make it the most powerful
Mac ever. In a space gray enclosure, the iMac
Pro is said to be ideal for graphics editing, the
creation of virtual reality content and realtime
3D rendering and is scheduled to ship in
December at a start price of $4,999.
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These were only a few of the announcements
made at this year’s keynote, however. Further
news included an update for the Apple Watch
which introduces new faces and complications
and details regarding the upcoming version
of macOS which we learned will be called
High Sierra.
Of course, as developers and lucky members of
the press continue to try out the new devices,
we’re bound to see more of features appearing
right up until the release of the iPhone 8 in
September. It seems as though Apple always has
something up its sleeve!
by Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan
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LEGAL EXPERTS TO TRUMP
ON TRAVEL BAN: TWITTER
HURTING CAUSE
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Memo from legal experts to President Donald
Trump on resurrecting his stalled travel ban:
Quit Twitter.
Trump’s 140-character musings this week may
have undercut his own efforts to persuade the
Supreme Court to reinstate his revised travel
ban, which Trump called a “watered-down,
politically correct” version of what he’d originally
sought. Just as Trump’s Justice Department
is arguing the ban doesn’t target Muslims,
legal experts said the president seems to be
suggesting the opposite.
Those who oppose the travel ban said Trump’s
Tweetstorm, ironically, helps their case. Neal
Katyal, the former acting solicitor general
representing Hawaii in its lawsuit against the
ban, said it was as if Trump was his co-counsel.
“We don’t need the help but will take it!” Katyal
wrote in his own Twitter post.
The courts in January halted Trump’s initial
order, which banned travel from seven majority-
Muslim countries and indefinitely halted
entry to Syrian refugees. Trump begrudgingly
scaled back the order by removing Iraq from
the list and making the Syria refugee ban only
temporary, but that order was blocked by the
courts, too.
At the heart of the legal wrangling is whether
Trump’s proposed ban violates the Constitution
by discriminating on the basis of religion. As
a candidate, Trump called for a “Muslim ban,”
comments that came back to haunt him as
president when the courts determined that
even his scaled-down order was “rooted in
religious animus and intended to bar Muslims
from this country.”
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Not so, the Justice Department has argued,
insisting the temporary ban is based on
credible national security concerns unrelated to
religion, and his campaign statements should
be ignored. But Stephen Vladeck, a University
of Texas law professor, said Trump was making
that argument much less tenable by calling the
revised order “politically correct.”
“These tweets are basically winking at his
supporters to say, obviously, I’m only doing this
so that the courts will uphold it,” Vladeck said.
“It makes it harder to argue this is not a Muslim
ban, and more importantly, it makes it harder
to argue that the president’s statements should
be irrelevant.”
In a series of early-morning tweets, Trump
bashed the Justice Department for its decision
to ask the Supreme Court to review the second
version of the ban - which he signed.
“The Justice Dept. should have stayed with
the original Travel Ban, not the watered down,
politically correct version they submitted to S.C.,”
Trump said. He urged the Justice Department,
which he oversees, to seek a “much tougher
version” of the order.
Hoping to shore up the order’s legal
underpinnings, both the White House and
Trump’s Homeland Security chief have insisted
it’s not actually a “travel ban,” criticizing reporters
for mischaracterizing it. But Trump on Monday
was having none of it.
“People, the lawyers and the courts can call it
whatever they want, but I am calling it what we
need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!” Trump wrote.
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He pounded the point home Monday night,
tweeting, “That’s right, we need a TRAVEL BAN
for certain DANGEROUS countries, not some
politically correct term that won’t help us
protect our people!”
The inconsistency put White House
spokeswoman Sarah Sanders in a delicate spot
Monday afternoon as questions streamed in
about why Trump was contradicting his aides.
His Twitter missive notwithstanding, Sanders
insisted Trump “isn’t concerned with what you
call it,” only with protecting Americans.
Sanders said the president had asked the Justice
Department to pursue an expedited hearing at
the Supreme Court, adding that Trump “wants
to go as far and as strong as possible under
the Constitution to protect the people of this
country.” Still, she said he’d signed the revised
ban “for the purposes of expediency” and wasn’t
considering a third version of the ban.
Trump argues the ban is crucial for
safeguarding American security, and he has
intensified his push for it in the wake of the
weekend vehicle and knife attack in London
that left seven people dead and dozens
injured. The Islamic State group has claimed
responsibility for the attack.
The second-guessing about Trump’s Twitter
strategy extended to the husband of one
Trump’s senior advisers. New York lawyer George
T. Conway III, whose wife is White House aide
Kellyanne Conway, wrote that online statements
“may make some ppl feel better,” but won’t help
win a Supreme Court majority.
“Sad,” he said on Twitter, borrowing a phrase
from Trump’s own Twitter.
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Image: Susan Walsh
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Conway had been considered for at least two
high-ranking Justice Department jobs, including
solicitor general, the government lawyer who
represents the president at the Supreme Court.
Josh Blackman, a law professor at South Texas
College of Law in Houston, called Trump “the
worst client” for the solicitor general.
“When you’re a lawyer what you want is your
client to stay silent,” he said.
Trump has the authority to order the Justice
Department to pursue a different strategy. It’s
unclear whether the president has conveyed
his requests to the department in a forum other
than Twitter. The Justice Department declined
to comment.
Trump has used attacks around the world to
justify his pursuit of the travel and immigration
ban, one of his first acts since taking office. The
original order, signed at the end of his first week
in office, was hastily unveiled without significant
input from top Trump national security advisers
or relevant federal agencies.
After that order was struck down, the
administration decided to write a second
directive rather than appeal the initial ban to the
Supreme Court. The narrower would temporarily
halt entry to the U.S. from Iran, Libya, Somalia,
Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
If anything, Supreme Court may be more
likely to hear the case in light of the tweets,
to determine once and for all how far the
president’s power goes, said Peter S. Margulies, a
law professor at Roger Williams.
It’s unclear when it will make that decision.
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TWITTER USERS,
BLOCKED BY
TRUMP, CRY
CENSORSHIP
President Donald Trump may be the nation’s
tweeter-in-chief, but some Twitter users say
he’s violating the First Amendment by
blocking people from his feed after they
posted scornful comments.
Lawyers for two Twitter users sent the White
House a letter Tuesday demanding they be
un-blocked from the Republican president’s @
realDonaldTrump account.
“The viewpoint-based blocking of our clients
is unconstitutional,” wrote attorneys at the
Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia
University in New York.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to
a request for comment.
The tweeters - one a liberal activist, the other a
cyclist who says he’s a registered Republican -
have posted and retweeted plenty of complaints
and jokes about Trump.
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Image: Andrew Harrer
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They say they found themselves blocked after
replying to a couple of his recent tweets. The
activist, Holly O’Reilly, posted a video of Pope
Francis casting a sidelong look at Trump and
suggested this was “how the whole world
sees you.” The cyclist, Joe Papp, responded to
the president’s weekly address by asking why
he hadn’t attended a rally by supporters and
adding, with a hashtag, “fakeleader.”
Blocking people on Twitter means they can’t
easily see or reply to the blocker’s tweets.
Although Trump started @realDonaldTrump as
a private citizen and Twitter isn’t governmentrun,
the Knight institute lawyers argue that he’s
made it a government-designated public forum
by using it to discuss policies and engage with
citizens. Indeed, White House press secretary
Sean Spicer said Tuesday that Trump’s tweets are
“considered official statements by the president.”
The institute’s executive director, Jameel Jaffer,
compares Trump’s Twitter account to a politician
renting a privately-owned hall and inviting the
public to a meeting.
“The crucial question is whether a government
official has opened up some space, whether
public or private, for expressive activity, and
there’s no question that Trump has done that
here,” Jaffer said. “The consequence of that is
that he can’t exclude people based solely on his
disagreement with them.”
The users weren’t told why they were blocked.
Their lawyers maintain that the connection
between their criticisms and the cutoff was plain.
Still, there’s scant law on free speech and social
media blocking, legal scholars note.
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“This is an emerging issue,” says Helen Norton,
a University of Colorado Law School professor
who specializes in First Amendment law.
Morgan Weiland, an affiliate scholar with Stanford
Law School’s Center for Internet and Society,
says the blocked tweeters’ complaint could air
key questions if it ends up in court. Does the
public forum concept apply in privately run social
media? Does it matter if an account is a politician’s
personal account, not an official one?
San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. declined to
comment. The tweeters aren’t raising complaints
about the company.
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Image: Matt Rourke

LEAKED
NSA REPORT
HIGHLIGHTS
DEEP FLAWS IN
US ELECTIONS
A newly leaked intelligence document
outlining alleged attempts by Russian military
intelligence to hack into U.S. election systems is
the latest piece of evidence suggesting a broad,
sophisticated foreign attack on the integrity of
U.S. elections.
And it underscores the contention of security
experts and computer scientists that the highly
decentralized, often ramshackle U.S. election
system remains profoundly vulnerable to
trickery or sabotage.
The document, purportedly produced by the
U.S. National Security Agency, does not indicate
whether actual vote-tampering occurred. But
it adds significant new detail to previous U.S.
intelligence assessments that alleged that
Russia-backed hackers had compromised
elements of America’s electoral machinery, and
suggests that attackers may also have been
laying groundwork for future subversive activity.
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The operation described in the document
could have given “the Russians a foothold
into the IT systems of elections offices around
the country that they could use to infect
machines and launch a vote-stealing attack,”
said J. Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan
computer scientist. “We don’t have evidence
that that happened,” he said, “but that’s a very
real possibility.”
Computer scientists have proven in the lab
that once they’re inside an election network,
sophisticated attackers could manipulate preelection
programming and alter results without
leaving a trace.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking
Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee,
said Tuesday that hacking into state voting
systems ahead of the Nov. 8 vote was more
widespread than has been disclosed.
Attempts by Russia to “break into a number of
our state voting processes” was “broad-based,”
he said, without offering details. In Moscow,
a Kremlin spokesman categorically denied
Tuesday that Moscow had tried to hack the
U.S. elections.
Warner did not directly address the classified
intelligence report published Monday by The
Intercept, an online news outlet. The Associated
Press has not independently verified the
authenticity of the report, although its apparent
leaker, an NSA contract worker, was arrested last
weekendin Georgia.
The NSA document says Russian military
intelligence first targeted employees of a Florida
voting systems supplier in August. Apparently
exploiting technical data obtained in that
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Image: Bloomberg
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operation, the cyber spies later sent phishing
emails to more than 100 local U.S. election
officials just days ahead of the Nov. 8 vote, intent
on stealing their login credentials and breaking
into the their systems, the document says.
The emails packed malware into Microsoft
Word documents and were forged to give the
appearance of being sent by the system vendor,
VR Systems of Tallahassee, Florida.
The Department of Homeland Security knew in
September that hackers believed to be Russian
agents had targeted the voter registration
systems of more than 20 states. To date, no
evidence of tampering with vote tallies or
registration rolls has emerged.
The U.S. elections system is a patchwork of more
than 3,000 jurisdictions overseen by the states
with nearly no federal oversight or standards.
The attack sketched out in the NSA document
appears designed specifically to cope with
that sprawl.
The NSA document did not name any of the
states where local officials were targeted by the
emails masquerading as being from VR Systems.
But in September, the FBI held a conference call
with all 67 county elections supervisors in the
battleground state of Florida to inform them
of infiltration of VR Systems without naming
the company. Ion Sancho, who retired as Leon
County supervisor in December, said he later
learned from industry contacts that it was
VR Systems.
VR Systems officials did not respond directly
to questions emailed by the AP. In a statement,
the company said it only knows of a “handful”
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of customers who received the fraudulent
email, adding that it had “no indication” that
anyone had clicked on the malware. The NSA
document says at least one account was
likely compromised.
The company makes software for on-site voter
registration at polling stations and backend
systems for voting management, according
to its website, which says it has customers in
California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New York,
North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
VR Systems’ electronic poll books - electronic
systems used to verify registered voters at
polling places - experienced problems on Nov.
8 in Durham County, North Carolina. The issue
forced officials to abandon the system, issue
paper ballots and extend voting hours.
North Carolina’s state elections director said
Tuesday that officials would investigate to see
if officials in Durham County were targeted and
possibly compromised.
Iowa University’s Douglas Jones is among
computer scientists who say voter registration
systems are particularly vulnerable to tampering,
in part because they are on the internet.
Someone trying to cause chaos and discredit an
election could delete names from registration
rolls prior to voting - or request absentee ballots
en masse. In the latter case, a voter showing up
at the polls on Election Day would be recorded
as having already cast their ballot. That could
force voters to file provisional ballots, and
provoke long lines.
There is no evidence any of that happened last
Election Day.
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Image: Frederic J. Brown
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Image: Ron Antonelli

3 CHALLENGES
TESLA FACES AS
SHAREHOLDERS
MEET
Tesla Inc. was riding high as it hosted its annual
shareholders’ meeting Tuesday.
The automaker’s shares are trading at record
levels, and it has surpassed General Motors and
Ford in market value. It’s about to introduce
its first mass-market electric car, the Model 3
sedan, as well as a line of solar panels that look
like roof tiles.
CEO Elon Musk is also enticing fans with new
vehicles, including a semi-truck it plans to show
this fall and the Model Y SUV, which he said will
go on sale in 2019.
But the company is not without its challenges.
Or, as Musk put it at the hour-long meeting,
“Tesla’s like a drama magnet.”
Here are three issues Musk addressed at
the meeting.
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CORPORATE STRUCTURE: Shareholders voted
Tuesday to continue electing Tesla’s board
members to three-year terms, rejecting a
proposal to elect them annually.
A group of Connecticut pension funds had called
for annual elections, saying it would improve
accountability. They also say conflicts of interest
“plague” Tesla’s board. Musk’s brother, Kimbal, is a
board member. Tesla’s lead independent director,
Antonio Gracias, also serves on the board of
Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, and is the CEO
of a private equity fund backed by Musk.
But shareholders sided with Tesla, which says its
mission requires long-term strategic planning
and three-year terms ensure that board
members aren’t distracted by short-term returns.
Official results of the vote will be released within
a few days, the company said.
MODEL 3: The Model 3 is Tesla’s first non-luxury
sedan, with a starting price around $35,000.
Production is on track to start next month,
Musk said. Tesla is aiming to make 5,000 Model
3 sedans per week by the end of this year and
10,000 per week in 2018.
Tesla hasn’t said how many people have put
down $1,000 refundable deposits for the Model
3, but Musk said Tuesday people who put down
a deposit now won’t get a car until the end of
2018, indicating it could be close to 500,000.
Whether Tesla can meet its production goals is
an open question. The company’s vehicles have
often faced delays getting to market. Its last new
vehicle, the Model X SUV, was delayed nearly 18
months. Musk says the Model 3 is much simpler
to make, but 14-year-old Tesla has no experience
producing and selling vehicles in high volumes.
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Tesla made just 84,000 cars last year. Bigger
rivals like GM, Volkswagen and Toyota routinely
sell more than 10 million per year.
“It’s crazy hard to make cars,” Musk said
Tuesday. “There’s 10,000 unique items, and it
only moves as fast as the slowest item.”
Even if the Model 3 is on time, servicing all
those vehicles will still be a challenge. Model S
and Model X owners are already worried about
having to share Tesla’s Supercharger stations
with an influx of new cars. And while Tesla is
promising to increase its network of stores and
service centers by 30 percent this year, it began
2017 with just 250 service centers worldwide.
That leaves many potential owners miles from a
service center.
Musk says a new fleet of mobile service trucks
will be deployed to help customers who are far
from service centers. Tesla also plans to double
its global high-speed charging points to 10,000
by the end of this year and increase them by
another 50 percent to 100 percent in 2018.
COMPETITION: Until now, Tesla has owned
the market for fully-electric vehicles that can
go 200 miles or more on a charge. But that’s
changing. GM beat Tesla to the mass market
with the Chevrolet Bolt, a $36,000 car that goes
238 miles per charge. Audi plans to introduce
an electric SUV with 300 miles of range next
year; Ford will have one by 2020. Volkswagen
plans more than 30 electric vehicles by 2025.
Automotive competitors like Mercedes and
Volvo - not to mention tech companies like
Google and Uber - can also match Tesla’s
efforts to develop self-driving vehicles. And
they have deeper pockets. Tesla has had only
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two profitable quarters in its seven years as a
public company.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, who has a
$305 price target on Tesla’s stock, says investors
need to consider whether Tesla should continue
to operate as a stand-alone market disruptor or if
it should merge with a bigger entity, like Apple.
But Musk gave no hint that Tesla is worried
about competition or is planning a merger. He
said Tesla, which is based in Palo Alto, California,
is actively considering three other plant sites
and could ultimately build 10 or 20 assembly
plants to meet demand. At least one of those
will be built by 2019 to manufacture the Model
Y, he said, because Tesla’s current plant in
California is “bursting at the seams.”
Tesla shares rose more than 1.5 percent to close
at $352.85 Tuesday.
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AMAZON OFFERS PRIME
DISCOUNT TO THOSE ON
GOVERNMENT BENEFITS
Amazon is making a play for lowincome
shoppers.
The online leader is offering a discount on its
pay-by-month Prime membership for people
who receive government assistance.
The move, announced Tuesday, is seen by some
analysts as an attempt to go after rival Walmart’s
lower-income shoppers. The world’s largest
retailer has revamped its shipping program and
improved other services to drive online sales
growth as it tries to narrow the gap with Amazon.
People who have a valid Electronic Benefits
Transfer card, used for programs such as the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs, or
food stamps, will pay $5.99 per month for the
Amazon Prime benefits like free shipping and
unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows.
The typical Prime membership is $99 a year, but
those who cannot afford to pay up front also
have a $10.99-a-month option.
Amazon designed this option to make its
“selection and savings more accessible, including
the many conveniences and entertainment
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enefits of Prime,” Greg Greeley, vice president
of Amazon Prime, said in a statement.
Walmart has gained momentum in its online
business, seeing its e-commerce sales soar 63
percent in its first quarter, up from a 29 percent
increase the previous period. It now offers
free-two-day shipping for online orders of its
most popular items with a purchase of $35.
Online shoppers who collect their purchases
at a store get extra discounts. And Walmart
has dramatically expanded its online offerings
- though it’s still far behind the hundreds of
millions of products at Amazon.com.
Amazon’s aim with the latest move is twopronged,
says Ken Perkins, president of
research firm RetailMetrics.
“It is part of Amazon’s overarching goal to
inexorably move into every corner of retail,”
he said. “Secondly, it is a direct move to pull
consumers away from its chief retail rival
Walmart, which has been far more aggressive
competing with Amazon on price, offerings,
delivery and building out its formidable
e-commerce operations.”
Internet consultant Sucharita Mulpuru-Kodali says
Amazon’s move “seems inevitable” because it’s
saturated a good part of the affluent and middleclass
sector - but describes it as a “head scratcher.”
“These consumers have always indexed
lower in online transactions, and their living
circumstances are often not well-suited to
package delivery, and many of these consumers
don’t have vehicles to drive to a location pick up
packages,” she wrote in an email. “Of the long
list of business that Amazon could target, this
doesn’t seem like the biggest one.”
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Image: Justin Sullivan
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Trailer
Movies
& TV Shows
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The Great Wall
From the breathtaking visual stylish Zhang
Yimou (House of Flying Daggers, Hero) is The
Great Wall which tells the story of an elite force
that makes a courageous stand for humanity
on one of the world’s most iconic structures.
Starring Matt Damon, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau
and Pedro Pascal amongst others.
by Zhang Yimou
Genre: Action & Adventure
Released: 2016
Price: $14.99
182 Ratings
FIVE FACTS:
1. For his role in the movie, Matt Damon
was trained in Hungary by Lajos Kassai, a
world champion archer, and reinventor of
horseback archery.
2. The filmmakers were denied permission
to film on the actual locations. Images of the
actual Great Wall were added digitally.
3. Bryan Cranston was in early talks to join
the film, but his potential role was taken by
Willem Dafoe.
4. The beasts in the movie, named Taotie, are
an ancient mythical creature that is never
satisfied with any amount of food. Some
argue that the design can be traced back to
jade pieces found in 3310 to 2250 BCE.
5. This was the most expensive Chinese
movie ever at $135 million and had over
one hundred translators working on
its production.
Rotten Tomatoes
35%
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118
Fight Off a Tao Tei (2017) - Matt Damon Movie

119

Before I Fall
Samantha Kingston seems to have it all: the
perfect friends, the perfect guy, and the
perfect future but after one fateful night,
she wakes up to learn she has no future at
all. Trapped reliving the same day over and
over again, she begins to question just how
perfect her life really was and must learn to
discover the power of how one single day
can make a difference before she runs out of
time for good.
FIVE FACTS:
1. Bella Thorne was originally cast in the role
of one of Sam’s friends, but she dropped out
for unknown reasons.
2. The movie’s protagonist wakes up every
day to a poster of butterflies. This symbolizes
The Butterfly Effect.
3. The movie was filmed in only 24 days.
4. This is one of many movies where the
protagonist is forced to relive the same day
over again in a loop. Other examples include
Groundhog Day(1993), Edge of Tomorrow
(2014), 12 Dates of Christmas(2011) and
Source Code(2011).
5. Based on the young adult novel by Lauren
Oliver who has also written Replica and
Vanishing Girls.
by Russo-Young
Genre: Drama
Released: 2017
Price: $14.99
68 Ratings
Rotten Tomatoes
67%
120

Trailer
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122
“I Think You’re Beautiful”

123

“Me Enamoré”
Music
124

El Dorado
Shakira
Since the release of her breakthrough album
15 years ago, Shakira has come to be known
for her distinctive vocals and flirty dance
moves that have turned her into an icon.
This Spanish-language 11th studio album
highlights her powerful voice particularly on
the tracks ‘Me Enamoré’ and ‘Nada,’ both of
which have a mix of steamy Spanish words
and romantic musical interludes that take you
on a heartfelt journey from track to track.
Genre: Pop/Latino
Released: May 26, 2017
13 Songs
Price: $9.99
526 Ratings
FIVE FACTS:
1. The track ‘Me Enamoré’ reached 50 million
streams in just one week.
2. It took Shakira exactly 12 months to
record this album.
3. Shakira is Arabic for “grateful” or “full
of grace.”
4. She was granted a Humanitarian Award
in 2006 for starting the foundation Barefoot
which helps children in her native Colombia
escape violence.
5. She is fluent in Portuguese, Italian,
English, Spanish, and Arabic.
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126
Me Enamoré (Behind the Scenes)

127

The War is Over
Josh Baldwin
The War is Over is the debut solo album from
worship leader and songwriter Josh Baldwin,
marking his first release with Bethel Music.
The album reflects themes of a journey
into the unknown, drawing on Josh’s reallife
experience moving cross-country from
North Carolina to California with his family.
It takes worshippers on a voyage toward the
reality that resurrection life was meant to be
experienced as a family, not alone.
FIVE FACTS:
1. Baldwin’s songs ‘Praises’ and ‘You Deserve
it All’ are popular worship albums and sung
around the world.
2. From 2009 to 2013, Bethel Music grew
from being a small local church ministry to a
record label and publishing company based
out of Bethel Church in Redding, California.
3. Baldwin and his wife Sheila are from North
Carolina where they have two children
named Ellie and Bear.
4. He states that his greatest motivation as a
worshipper and a songwriter is “the desire to
connect with the Father’s heart and user in
the presence of God.”
5. Bethel Music regularly tours the U.S. and
internationally and in October 2016 certain
Bethel artists, including Josh, embarked on
a two-week tour to record a live album with
guest worship leader Francesca Battistelli.
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Genre: Christian & Gospel
Released: May 26, 2017
11 Songs
Price: $9.99
“Abraham”
59 Ratings
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130

“You Deserve It All”
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132

BOX OFFICE TOP 20:
‘WONDER
WOMAN’ REVISED
UP TO $103.3M
“Wonder Woman” was even mightier than
expected. Warner Bros. has revised the film’s
weekend haul up to $103.3 million.
The studio on Monday said the tickets sold
on Sunday turned out to be even higher than
it estimated over the weekend. Warner Bros.
previously had announced a $100.5 million
North American estimate.
The nearly $3 million swing, Warner Bros.
said, was caused by an unusually small drop
in audience from Saturday to Sunday. That
indicates that the well-reviewed film’s strong
word of mouth is giving “Wonder Woman” more
momentum than usual.
The Patty Jenkins-directed film, starring Gal
Gadot, became the biggest opening for a
film directed by a woman and by far the most
successful female-led superhero release.
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The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters
Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution
studio, gross, number of theater locations,
average receipts per location, total gross and
number of weeks in release, as compiled
Monday by comScore:
1.
“Wonder Woman,” Warner Bros.,
$103,251,471, 4,165 locations,
$24,790 average, $103,251,471,1 week.
2.
“Captain Underpants: The First
Epic Movie,” 20th Century Fox,
$23,851,539, 3,434 locations, $6,946
average, $23,851,539,1 week.
3.
“Pirates Caribbean: Dead Men Tell
No Tales,” Disney, $22,087,099,
4,276 locations, $5,165 average,
$115,095,870, 2 weeks.
4.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” Disney,
$9,839,370, 3,507 locations,
$2,806 average, $355,580,702, 5 weeks.
5.
“Baywatch,” Paramount, $8,741,285,
3,647 locations, $2,397 average,
$41,965,723, 2 weeks.
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6.
“Alien: Covenant,” 20th Century Fox,
$4,122,884, 2,660 locations,
$1,550 average, $67,342,368, 3 weeks.
7.
“Everything, Everything,” Warner Bros.,
$3,301,366, 2,375 locations,
$1,390 average, $28,282,953, 3 weeks.
8.
“Snatched,” 20th Century Fox,
$1,318,582, 1,625 locations,
$811 average, $43,846,996, 4 weeks.
9.
“Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul,”
20th Century Fox, $1,289,793,
2,088 locations, $618 average,
$17,894,397, 3 weeks.
10.
“King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,”
Warner Bros., $1,173,672,
1,222 locations, $960 average,
$37,176,629, 4 weeks.
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11.
“Beauty and the Beast,” Disney,
$658,056, 527 locations,
$1,249 average, $502,136,527, 12 weeks.
12.
“The Boss Baby,” 20th Century Fox,
$621,139, 684 locations,
$908 average, $170,921,703, 10 weeks.
13.
“3 Idiotas,” Lionsgate, $609,249,
349 locations, $1,746 average,
$609,249,1 week.
14.
“Paris Can Wait,” Sony Pictures
Classics, $529,395, 151 locations,
$3,506 average, $1,606,002, 4 weeks.
15.
“The Fate Of The Furious,” Universal,
$489,465, 593 locations,
$825 average, $223,807,400, 8 weeks.
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16.
“Churchill,” Cohen Media Group,
$400,843, 215 locations,
$1,864 average, $400,843,1 week.
17.
“Bon Cop Bad Cop 2,” Entertainment
One Films, $348,162, 95 locations,
$3,665 average, $4,436,187, 4 weeks.
18.
“How to Be a Latin Lover,” Lionsgate,
$277,496, 277 locations,
$1,002 average, $31,701,000, 6 weeks.
19.
“The Lovers,” A24, $244,817,
348 locations, $703 average,
$1,912,185, 5 weeks.
20.
“Going In Style,” Warner Bros.,
$230,076, 303 locations,
$759 average, $44,245,405, 9 weeks.
Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast
Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics
are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney,
Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned
by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are
owned by 21st Century Fox; Warner Bros. and New Line are units
of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors
including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn;
Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by
AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.
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142

‘WONDER
WOMAN’ IS A
HIT THAT EVEN
HOLLYWOOD
CAN’T IGNORE
Batman is the superhero with the calling-card
beam of light, but Wonder Woman sent a
signal over the weekend that even Hollywood
couldn’t miss.
Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman” grossed
$103.3 million in North America over its
debut weekend, a figure that easily surpassed
industry expectations, set a new record for
a film directed by a woman and bested all
previous stand-alone female superhero movies
put together. (There aren’t many and there
hasn’t been one in 12 years.)
Strong reviews (93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes)
and word of mouth (an A CinemaScore)
pushed the film into must-see status. Wonder
Woman, that Amazonian warrior-princess last
in the spotlight in ‘70s, lassoed the zeitgeist.
By Monday, Warner Bros. had to increase its
weekend estimate up by almost $3 million
because audiences kept coming on Sunday.
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“Wonder Woman” is a hit, and in a movie
industry that has seldom put female filmmakers
behind the camera for its biggest blockbusters,
it could be an important one. It certainly had
that feel opening weekend, where droves of
moviegoers came wearing “We are all Diana”
T-shirts, young girls flocked in Wonder Woman
outfits and even movie stars were blowing kisses
at the movie and calling it a “game changer.”
“I am a filmmaker who wants to make successful
films, of course. I want my film to be celebrated,”
Jenkins said before her film’s debut. “But there’s
a whole other person in me who’s sitting and
watching what’s happening right now who
so hopes, not for me, that this movie defies
expectation. Because I want to see the signal
that that will send to the world.”
Jenkins’ objective appeared to be met by the
opening of “Wonder Woman,” a heavily marketed
$150 million movie that spent a decade in
development before finally - after hordes of
other superheroes - making it to the big screen.
“Wonder Woman” didn’t surpass the openings
of previous DC Comics adaptations: the terribly
received “Batman v. Superman” and “Suicide
Squad.” But unlike those releases, “Wonder
Woman” is good enough to play strongly
through the next few weeks. “The momentum
is with us in every way,” said Warner Bros.
distribution chief Jeff Goldstein.
That was decidedly not the case heading into
the weekend. “Wonder Woman” came on the
heels of disappointing DC Comics films and a
lackluster early summer box office where little
besides “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” has
caught fire.
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But more importantly, Jenkins and “Wonder
Woman” burst through Hollywood’s glass
ceiling with one of the rarest things: a summer
blockbuster helmed by a woman. “Maybe this
raises awareness that female directors are a force
to be reckoned with,” said Paul Dergarabedian,
senior media analyst for comScore.
That’s been especially hard-to-miss this summer.
Sofia Coppola, whose upcoming June release
“The Beguiled” remakes the 1971 Don Siegel-Clint
Eastwood movie from a female perspective, last
week became just the second female filmmaker
to win best director at the Cannes Film Festival.
“I try to keep making work and I have a female
point of view that I embrace,” Coppola said
recently. “I don’t want to speak so politically. I
just feel like that’s not my role. But I’m happy to
put my work out there.”
Cannes juror Jessica Chastain also drew
widespread applause for questioning the quality
of the female characters on view at the festival.
Her fellow jury member Maren Ade, the German
director of “Toni Erdmann,” spoke about the
dearth of female filmmakers.
“I found after a while always being surrounded by
men doing this job, the impression comes up that
it’s maybe not a good job for a woman,” Ade said.
“I think that’s completely wrong and I think we
need much more women doing films. We all want
the film business to reflect modern society.”
With its action movies and comic-book
films, summer has long been the most male
moviegoing season of the year - one where
even female Ghostbusters are enough to spark
a tempestuous culture war. But Jenkins and
Coppola have some company this season.
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Next week, Lucia Aniello, a writer and director
from “Broad City,” will release her bachelorette
comedy “Rough Night.” In August, Kathryn
Bigelow returns with her Detroit riots thriller
“Detroit.” It’s shaping up to be an atypically
tough summer for misogyny at the multiplex.
Yet researchers who have spent years charting
the lack of progress for female directors in
Hollywood are skeptical much has changed.
“High-profile cases, such as Kathryn Bigelow
and Patty Jenkins, can dramatically skew
our perceptions of how women are actually
faring as film directors,” said San Diego State
University professor Martha M. Lauzen,
executive director of the Center for the Study
of Women in Television and Film. “While their
successes are encouraging, it is important to
consider the larger picture and to continue
counting the numbers of women working on
screen and behind the scenes so we can have
a conversation about women’s representation
and employment that is grounded in a
verifiable reality.”
According to the center’s latest Celluloid Ceiling
study, women comprised 7 percent of directors
working on the top 250 domestic grossing films
of 2016. It was 9 percent in 1998.
Stacy L. Smith, director of the Media,
Diversity and Social Change Initiative at USC
Annenberg, cited the initiative’s three-year
study that found female directors “face a
steep fiscal cliff as they attempt to move from
independent to more commercial filmmaking.”
Of the 41 women directors interviewed, 44
percent said they were interested in directing
action films or blockbusters.
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“We would all like to hope that the success of
‘Wonder Woman’ will open doors not only for
Patty Jenkins but for other female directors,”
Smith said. “However, research and theory
suggests that until the narrow definition of
leadership behind the camera changes, it will
be an uphill battle for more women to work as
directors on these types of movies. The female
talent is there, it is the hiring process and the
imaginations of executives and producers that
represent the true barrier to progress.”
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Image: JoJo Whilden

ON ‘ORANGE,’
NICK SANDOW
EXCELS BY MORE
THAN A WHISKER
In the women’s prison that is home to
“Orange Is the New Black,” Warden Joe Caputo
perseveres with a mix of fatuous authority and
scattershot nobility.
“I think he wants to save everyone,” says series
creator Jenji Kohan in an email. “His good
intentions are often thwarted.” Striking that
balance is Nick Sandow, who portrays Caputo
with “nuance and humor and surprise,” Kohan
adds. “He just seems to inhabit the character.
And he looks great!”
THE MUSTACHE
Part of Caputo’s look is his mustache, which,
reflecting his personality, seems wellintentioned
but a bit misguided.
During a recent chat to discuss the Netflix
drama’s fifth season, to be released Friday,
Sandow has hidden the mustache within a more
extensive growth of beard, “out of laziness,” he
explains. But rest assured the ‘stache will be back
when production resumes in a few months.
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Asked how the mustache came about, Sandow
says he originally grew it to try out for the
Caputo role.
“I read a character description that said
he looked like a walrus,” Sandow recalls. “I
auditioned with it and Jenji was like, ‘Yes, let’s
keep it.’ It became his signature.
“Then, just last year, I was talking to the
casting person about his ‘walrus look.’ And she
said that actually had been a description for
ANOTHER character.”
THE ROLE
As the series has evolved, Sandow says he has
continued to explore his character’s conflict with
“wanting and needing to help people but not
being able to get out of his own way,” a condition,
he confides with a laugh, “I know very well.”
He’s also examining “the reasons why you want
to help people. This desperate need to be the
hero - what is that about? Are you being selfless?
I’m not so sure.”
With the start of the new season (with Taylor
Schilling, Kate Mulgrew and Uzo Aduba among
others in the large cast), Caputo’s efforts have
gone awry as perhaps never before: He’s dealing
with a full-scale prison riot. Another instance of
his futile pursuits.
“There’s no getting that rock up the hill, and
he knows it. But he’s still after it. I think that’s
the part of him that I really love. I think there’s
something very genuine about his passion,
about his drive, that makes him very human.
“He’s never gonna please anybody, and
especially not himself.”
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Image: JoJo Whilden

THE FILMMAKER
While the 50-year-old Sandow has gathered
many acting credits in TV (“Boardwalk
Empire,” ‘’Blue Bloods,” ‘’Third Watch”), films
(“Resurrecting the Champ,” ‘’Return to Paradise”)
as well as on the stage, he has charted a parallel
course as a filmmaker.
He directs the “Orange” season opener. He wrote
and directed (as well as appearing in) “The
Wannabe,” a 2015 mob drama starring Vincent
Piazza and Patricia Arquette.
His recent six-part Spike docuseries, “Time: The
Kalief Browder Story,” recounts the tragedy
of a 16-year-old student from the Bronx who
spent three years in New York’s Rikers Island jail
without ever being convicted of a crime.
Now he is starting work on a docuseries about
Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old high school
student who was shot and killed in a Florida
gated community in 2012. This project, like
“Time,” is being produced with Jay Z and the
Weinstein brothers.
Sandow’s behind-the-scenes ventures began
a few years ago after he performed in a play at
the off-off-Broadway theater run by his friend,
Michael Imperioli.
“He said, ‘You want to direct the next play?’
And I said, ‘Sure, I’ll do it.’ And I jumped in.”
Sandow liked it but found this new
challenge exhausting.
“When we finally opened, I said, ‘Oh, wow! I
didn’t think I was gonna get through it, Mike.’
And he said, ‘You NEVER directed a play before?!’
“He had no idea!”
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Image: JoJo Whilden

THE ACTOR
“I grew up in the Bronx, where saying you want
to be an actor was just not something you did.
But I loved movies, and I had this secret idea
to do it. I snuck downtown and took an acting
class. Didn’t tell anybody. And I just fell in love.”
Why?
“I think there was, and is, a need to be seen and
noticed. But when it got serious, it was a way
for me to understand the world,” he explains. “I
didn’t have an opportunity to go to university, so
it became a way for me to learn. Part of being a
character actor is that sort of exploration: asking
the questions, laying yourself bare. It’s not about
you. It’s bigger than you.
“I like that idea.”
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160

IN ‘THE MUMMY,’
TOM CRUISE
DANCES WITH
THE UNDEAD
Of all the CGI-ed supernatural forces slung in
Alex Kurtzman’s “The Mummy” (and, believe
me, there are a lot), none can compete with the
spectral spectacle of Tom Cruise, at 54.
He and his abs are almost creepily ageless. So
it’s almost fitting that in one of the typically
bonkers scenes in “The Mummy,” Cruise awakes
naked and unscathed alongside cadavers in a
morgue, where he bewilderedly removes the
tag attached to his toe. Indefatigable and unkillable,
Cruise really is the undead. He’s like the
anti-Steve Buscemi.
Yet Cruise and “The Mummy” - the opening salvo
in Universal’s bid to birth its “Dark Universe”
monster movie franchise - are a poor fit, and not
the good kind, like “Abbott and Costello Meet
Frankenstein.” There’s plenty of standard, cocky
Tom Cruise leading man stuff here: running,
swimming, daredevil airplane acrobatics, more
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unning. But his relentless forward momentum
is sapped by the convoluted monster mishmash
that engulfs “The Mummy,” a movie conceived
and plotted like the monster version of Marvel.
Increasingly, Cruise - like big-budget movies,
themselves - is running in circles.
He plays Nick Morton, a roguish Army sergeant
who plunders antiquities from Iraq with his
partner Chris Vail (Jake Johnson). In a remote
village they, along with archaeologist Jenny
Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), unearth a giant
Egyptian tomb bathed in mercury. In it lies the
Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) who
was mummified alive (imagine that wrapping
job) after trying to unleash the evil Egyptian
god of Set while killing her Pharaoh father, his
second wife and the newborn baby that would
deny her the throne. Naturally, she’s going to
get loose.
Hers and other backstories are shown as “The
Mummy” stumbles out of its grave, vainly trying
to organize the story around two burial sites
(the other is in London), the strange visions
that begin plaguing Morton, and a quixotic (or
merely capitalistic) gambit to stitch together
a unifying principle for the Dark Universe.
Mysterious apocalyptic happenings (a swarm
of crows, a horde of rats, occasional ghouls)
prompt a series of helter-skelter chase scenes
that eventually lead Morton and Halsey to
Prodigium, a stealth organization led by the
dapper Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe) that
controls monstrous outbreaks, including those
of its schizophrenic leader.
Prodigium would seem to be the connecting
tissue for Universal’s shared universe, with plans
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Image: Chiabella James
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for “Frankenstein,” ‘’The Invisible Man,” ‘’The
Creature From the Black Lagoon” and more in
the works. Much of “The Mummy” hinges on
Boutella’s vengeful and vaguely misogynistic
monster (she for some reason needs a man
- Morton, it turns out - to really do damage).
But much of the film endeavors to set up the
characters - maybe even famous phantoms -
to come.
What the supposed value of having these
movies “share” a universe is, I’m not sure. Movies
aren’t sandboxes and the only time I remember
enjoying a character connect films was Michael
Keaton’s Ray Nicolette popping up in the
Elmore Leonard adaptations “Out of Sight” and
“Jackie Brown.”
Where these films could be fun, though, is
seeing a talented star play a big, theatrical
character that would honor the ghosts of Boris
Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Javier Bardem and
Johnny Depp are already lined up, so who
knows? But the desperate need to graft them
into a larger comic-book-like “world” - and a
thinly conceived one, at that - suggests there
won’t be much room for any actor to breathe.
For now we’re cursed with “The Mummy,” a
messy and muddled product lacking even the
carefree spirit of the Brendan Fraser “Mummy”
trilogy. There are moments of humor in the
script by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie,
and Dylan Kussman, but Cruise isn’t the one
(maybe Chris Pratt?) to pull off aloofly referring
to the mummy as “the chick in the box.”
Almost to the degree that he was in “The Edge
of Tomorrow,” Cruise is put through the ringer.
A spiraling cargo plane spins him like laundry.
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He careens through a double-decker bus. His
rib cage is yanked. Cruise remains, as ever,
eminently game. But he, like us moviegoers,
might have to starting wondering: What god
have we angered?
“The Mummy,” a Universal Pictures release, is
rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of
America for “violence, action and scary images,
and for some suggestive content and partial
nudity.” Running time: 110 minutes. One and a
half stars out of four.
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168

SPACE STATION
WELCOMES
1ST RETURNING
VEHICLE SINCE
SHUTTLE
The International Space Station welcomed its
first returning vehicle in years Monday - a SpaceX
Dragon capsule making its second delivery.
Space shuttle Atlantis was the last repeat visitor
six years ago. It’s now a museum relic at NASA’s
Kennedy Space Center.
NASA astronaut Jack Fischer noted “the special
significance” of SpaceX’s recycling effort as soon
as he caught the Dragon supply ship with the
station’s big robot arm.
“That’s right, it’s flying its second mission,”
Fischer said. “We have a new generation of
vehicles now led by commercial partners
like SpaceX.”
SpaceX is working to reuse as many parts of
its rockets and spacecraft as possible to slash
launch costs. The California-based company
launched its first recycled booster with a satellite
in March; another will fly in a few weeks.
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170

The Dragon pulled up two days after launching
from Florida. This same capsule dropped off a
shipment in 2014. SpaceX refurbished it for an
unprecedented second trip, keeping the hull,
thrusters and most other parts but replacing the
heat shield and parachutes.
Until their retirement in 2011, NASA’s shuttles
made multiple flights to the space station.
This new 6,000-pound shipment includes live
lab animals: 40 mice, 400 adult fruit flies and
2,000 fruit fly eggs that should hatch any day.
The mice are part of a bone loss study, while
the flies are flying so researchers can study
their hearts in weightlessness. Even more than
mice and rats, the hearts of fruit flies are similar
in many ways to the human heart, beating at
about the same rate, for instance.
Some of these animals will return to Earth
aboard the Dragon in about a month.
SpaceX officials anticipate using Dragon
capsules as many as three times.
“It’s starting to feel kinda normal to reuse
rockets. Good. That’s how it is for cars & airplanes
and how it should be for rockets,” SpaceX
founder and chief executive Elon Musk said via
Twitter following Saturday’s liftoff of the Dragon
and landing of the Falcon rocket’s first stage.
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SpaceX is targeting launch of its eleventh
Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-11)
from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s
Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The instantaneous
launch window is on Saturday, June 3 at 5:07 p.m.
EDT or 21:07 UTC, with a backup launch attempt on
Sunday, June 4 at 5:07 p.m. EDT. Dragon will separate
from Falcon 9’s second stage about 10 minutes after
liftoff and attach to the station on June 4.
SpaceX is targeting launch of its eleventh
Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-11)
from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s
Kennedy Space Center, Florida on Saturday, June 3
at 5:07 p.m. EDT or 21:07 UTC.
The CRS-11 mission will be the first reflight of a
Dragon spacecraft and will mark the 100th launch
from historic LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center.
Following stage separation, the first stage of Falcon
9 will attempt to land at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1
(LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
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Image: Glenn Benson

Musk said the latest touchdown was “pretty
much dead center” at the SpaceX landing zone
at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Liftoff
occurred next door at Kennedy Space Center.
The Dragon is the only station supply ship
capable of returning items, like science samples.
On Sunday, an Orbital ATK cargo ship named
in honor of the late John Glenn departed the
station. It will remain in orbit a week before
burning up in the atmosphere upon re-entry.
Glenn, the first American to orbit the world, died
in December at age 95.
“Godspeed & fair winds S.S. John Glenn,” Fischer
wrote in a tweet.
Online:
NASA
SpaceX
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Image: Bill Ingalls

NASA PICKS
12 NEW
ASTRONAUTS
FROM CRUSH OF
APPLICANTS
NASA chose 12 new astronauts from its biggest
pool of applicants ever, hand-picking seven men
and five women who could one day fly aboard
the nation’s next generation of spacecraft.
The astronaut class of 2017 includes doctors,
scientists, engineers, pilots and military
officers from Anchorage to Miami and points
in between. They’ve worked in submarines,
emergency rooms, university lecture halls, jet
cockpits and battleships. They range in age from
29 to 42, and they typically have led the pack.
“It makes me personally feel very inadequate
when you read what these folks have done,” said
NASA’s acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot.
Vice President Mike Pence welcomed the group
during a televised ceremony at NASA’s Johnson
Space Center in Houston. He offered President
Donald Trump’s congratulations and noted that
the president is “firmly committed to NASA’s
noble mission, leading America in space.”
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Pence assured the crowd that NASA will have
the resources and support necessary to continue
to make history. He said he would lead a
resurrected National Space Council to help set
the direction of the program.
Under Trump, “America will lead in space once
again, and the world will marvel,” Pence said.
More than 18,300 people threw their hats into
the space ring during a brief application period
1 ½ years ago. That’s more than double the
previous record of 8,000 set in 1978, when the
space shuttles were close to launching.
The 12 selected will join 44 astronauts already
in the NASA corps. U.S. astronauts have not
launched from home soil since 2011, when the
space shuttles were retired, thus the low head
count. Americans have been hitching rides
aboard Russian spacecraft in the meantime, but
that could change next year.
After two years of training, the newbies may
end up riding commercial rockets to the
International Space Station or flying beyond the
moon in NASA’s Orion spacecraft. Their ultimate
destination could be Mars.
SpaceX and Boeing are building capsules
capable of carrying astronauts to the space
station and back as soon as next year. A launch
engineer and senior manager for SpaceX, Robb
Kulin, is among the new astronauts. He’s also
worked as an ice driller in Antarctica and a
commercial fisherman in Alaska.
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“Hopefully, one day, I actually fly on a vehicle
that ... I got to design,” Kulin said.
Kulin and his classmates may be in for a long
wait. Some members of the class of 2009 have
yet to launch.
Dr. Jonny Kim, a former Navy SEAL and specialist
in emergency medicine, told reporters it “may
be a little unclear” what the future holds, at least
regarding what spacecraft he and his fellow
astronauts might fly.
“We’re just happy to be here,” he added.
Jack Fischer, who was in the 2009 group, just
got to the space station in April, but he said he
couldn’t be happier as he showed the latest
hires their “new office” in a video.
“It’s a little bit cramped. The desk is kind of small.
But the view. Oh, the view.”
Geologist Jessica Watkins already has
experienced space - vicariously - as part of
the team working with NASA’s Curiosity rover
on Mars.
“We intend to send her to Mars one day, folks,”
NASA Flight Operations Director Brian Kelly said
in introducing Watkins. She gave a thumbs-up.
This is NASA’s 22nd group of astronauts. The first
group, the original Mercury 7 astronauts, was
chosen in 1959.
Altogether, 350 Americans have now been
selected to become astronauts. Requirements
include U.S. citizenship; degrees in science,
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Image: Bill Ingalls

technology, engineering or math; and at least
three years of experience or 1,000 hours of
piloting jets.
A brief look at the elite 12:
- Navy Lt. Kayla Barron of Richland, Washington, a
submarine-warfare officer and nuclear engineer
who was among the first class of women
commissioned into the submarine service and
now works at the U.S. Naval Academy.
- Zena Cardman of Williamsburg, Virginia, a
graduate research fellow at the National Science
Foundation with a specialty in microorganisms
in subsurface environments such as caves.
- Air Force Lt. Col. Raja Chari of Cedar Falls, Iowa,
director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at
Edwards Air Force Base in California.
- Navy Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Dominick of Wheat
Ridge, Colorado, department head for Strike
Fighter Squadron 115.
- Bob Hines of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a NASA
research pilot at Johnson Space Center.
- Warren “Woody” Hoburg of Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, assistant professor of aeronautics
and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
- Dr. Jonny Kim of Los Angeles, a Navy lieutenant
who trained as a SEAL and is completing
his residency in emergency medicine at
Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
- Robb Kulin of Anchorage, Alaska, who leads
the launch chief engineering group for SpaceX
at Hawthorne, California.
- Marine Maj. Jasmin Moghbeli of Baldwin, New
York, who tests H-1 helicopters and serves as a
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quality assurance and avionics officer for Marine
Operational Test Evaluation Squadron 1 in
Yuma, Arizona.
- Loral O’Hara of Sugar Land, Texas, a research
engineer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution in Massachusetts.
- Dr. Francisco “Frank” Rubio of Miami, an Army
major who is serving as a surgeon in Fort
Carson, Colorado.
- Jessica Watkins of Lafayette, Colorado, a
postdoctoral fellow at California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, California.
Online:
NASA
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DRUGS SCORE BIG
WINS AGAINST
LUNG, PROSTATE,
BREAST CANCERS
Drugs are scoring big wins against common
cancers, setting new standards for how to treat
many prostate, breast and lung tumors. There’s
even a “uni-drug” that may fight many forms of
the disease.
What’s striking: The drugs are beneficial in
some cases for more than a year, much longer
than the few months many new drugs provide.
Here are highlights from the world’s largest
cancer meeting, the American Society of Clinical
Oncology conference in Chicago.
PROSTATE CANCER
Janssen Biotech’s Zytiga improved survival and
delayed cancer growth for 18 months when
added to standard care in a study of 1,200
men with advanced prostate cancer. The drug
is approved to treat tumors that are resistant
to hormone therapy; this study tested it as
initial treatment.
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The study was stopped early because men on
Zytiga were living longer - 66 percent were
alive after three years versus 49 percent of a
comparison group not given the drug. Zytiga
also delayed the time until cancer worsened -
33 months versus 15 months for the others.
In a second study of 1,900 men newly diagnosed
with advanced prostate cancer, adding Zytiga
to usual treatment also improved survival:
83 percent were alive at three years versus
76 percent of men not given the drug. Zytiga
also cut the chance of relapse and serious
bone problems.
Zytiga caused more side effects, including high
blood pressure, but the benefits outweigh them,
doctors said.
The results will change practice “pretty much
overnight,” said Dr. Richard Schilsky, chief
medical officer for the group hosting the
conference. Most men with prostate cancer that
has spread will be eligible for Zytiga - about
25,000 each year in U.S. and more in other
countries where more cases are found at a late
stage, he said. Zytiga costs about $10,000 a
month in the U.S.
LUNG CANCER
Roche’s Alecensa stopped cancer growth for 15
months longer than Pfizer’s Xalkori did in a study
of 303 people with advanced lung cancer and a
mutation in a gene called ALK. About 5 percent
of lung cancer patients - 12,500 in the U.S. each
year - have an ALK mutation, especially younger
people and nonsmokers who get the disease.
Alecensa kept cancer from worsening for 26
months versus 11 months for Xalkori. It also
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penetrates the brain better: only 9 percent of
those on it had their lung cancer spread to the
brain during the first year of treatment versus 41
percent of those on Xalkori. Serious side effects
and deaths were less common with Alecensa.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
approved it in December 2015 for ALK-related
lung cancers that worsened despite trying
Xalkori. The new study tested it as initial
treatment and is aimed at getting full approval
for that.
Xalkori is around $10,000 a month and Alecensa,
about $12,500.
BREAST CANCER
For the first time, a new type of drug called a
PARP inhibitor showed promise in a major study
of women with inherited BRCA gene mutations
that raise their risk of developing breast cancer.
PARP inhibitors keep cancer cells from fixing
problems in their DNA, and some are approved
now for some ovarian cancers.
The study tested AstraZeneca’s Lynparza in 302
women with cancers that had spread beyond
the breast and were not the type that respond
to the drug Herceptin. Half were “triple negative,”
meaning they are not helped by Herceptin or
drugs that block the two main hormones that
fuel breast cancer’s growth. All had previously
tried chemotherapy and some had tried
hormone blockers.
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Image: Gerry Broome

Lynparza modestly delayed the time until
cancer worsened - 7 months versus 4 months
for women given one of three commonly used
chemotherapies. Lynparza’s main side effects
were nausea, fatigue and blood count problems,
but serious problems were less common than
with chemo. It’s too soon to know whether
Lynparza improves survival. It costs about
$13,000 a month.
A UNI-DRUG?
Loxo Oncology Inc.’s larotrectinib is aimed
at many types of cancer with a certain gene
abnormality, and in children as well as adults
- a first on both counts. The gene problem
occurs in less than 1 percent of cancers, so a
big question is how these rare gene problems
would be found unless widespread tumorgene
testing becomes more common than it
is now.
In a study of 50 patients with 17 different
kinds of cancer, 76 percent - an unusually high
number - responded to treatment and their
disease has not worsened. Side effects include
fatigue and mild dizziness.
The company will seek FDA approval based on
these results. Last month, the FDA said Merck’s
immune therapy drug Ketruda could be used for
any pediatric or adult cancer with certain gene
features, but larotrectinib would be the first drug
developed from scratch with this approach.
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IN BEIJING,
PERRY PROMOTES
US-CHINA
CLEAN ENERGY
COOPERATION
America and China have “extraordinary
opportunities” to work together on clean energy,
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Thursday,
amid global criticism of President Donald
Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris
climate agreement.
In a meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Zhang
Gaoli on the sidelines of a clean energy
conference in Beijing, Perry cited liquefied
natural gas, nuclear energy and carbon capture
as areas where the two countries can cooperate.
“Those are three areas that I think we have
extraordinary opportunities to be partners to
work on clean energy issues,” Perry said.
Trump’s decision last week to withdraw from the
climate agreement negotiated in 2015 sparked
speculation that he is creating a leadership void
that could be filled by China, the world’s biggest
emitter of greenhouse gases.
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Image: Ng Han Guan
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In Japan on Monday, Perry said he hoped China
will step forward to be a “real leader” on climate
issues, while rejecting criticism that the United
States is backing down.
“I hope China will step in and attempt to take
the mantle away. It would be a good challenge
for them,” Perry said.
In their opening remarks before reporters were
ushered out of Thursday’s meeting, neither Perry
nor Zhang mentioned Trump’s decision. The 2015
agreement had largely been seen as a triumph
of cooperation between the U.S. and China,
the world’s two biggest economies and energy
consumers who are often at odds on issues such
as regional security and human rights.
An official readout of the meeting later
distributed to journalists cited Perry as also
mentioning renewables - essentially wind and
solar power - as another area of “mutual interest”
to both countries.
China is a global leader in renewables, although
its solar panels and wind turbines often sit idle
and the energy they could produce goes to
waste because of its outdated electrical grid
and a preference among some local officials for
coal, which still accounted for 62 percent of total
energy consumption in 2016.
California Gov. Jerry Brown, who also attended
the Beijing conference, told The Associated Press
that Trump’s move would ultimately prove only
a temporary setback because China, European
countries and individual U.S. states will fill the
gap left by the federal government’s move to
abdicate leadership on the issue. China and
California signed an agreement Tuesday to work
together on reducing emissions.
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Image: Ng Han Guan
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Brown met with China’s president, Xi Jinping,
on Wednesday and told reporters later that
they discussed ways to expand economic
opportunities between China and California
with an emphasis on clean energy.
In a notable contrast, Perry’s meeting was with
a leader of lower standing. Among the seven
members of the Communist Party’s all-powerful
Politburo Standing Committee, Zhang ranks last.
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Image: Mary Altaffer

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COMPANION ROBOTS
FEATURED AT SHANGHAI
ELECTRONICS SHOW
More than 50 companies are showcasing a new
generation of robots at this week’s Shanghai
CES electronics show, most of which serve as
companions at home, or butlers in shopping malls.
Chinese companies including Shenzhen-based
startup Aelos Robotic Inc. are displaying robots
with heightened dexterity and the ability to pass
through mazes using sensors.
Beijing’s Canny Unisrobo Technology Co. Ltd. is a
pioneer in the field, with its Canbot produced in
cooperation with Microsoft having entered mass
production almost a decade ago
Sales manager Zhang Jianting said Thursday
that annual sales are about 150,000 units, with
the home companion robots selling for from
$130 to $483 depending on size.
Zhang said the market is growing ever more
crowded, with many more players entering
this year.
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ABC IS OFF AND
RUNNING WITH
NBA FINALS
The NBA Finals is off and running with its best
ratings through two games since the Chicago
Bulls’ last championship in 1998. Now ABC
has to hope the Cleveland Cavaliers can make
it competitive.
The first two games, both won by the Golden
State Warriors, averaged 19.2 million viewers,
the Nielsen company said. The interest in
championship series usually increase if they are
evenly-matched, so if the Cavs can take a few
games ABC would be in great shape.
Unfortunately for the network, the Warriors
haven’t lost in the playoffs yet.
NBC had a strong showing with the debut of
Megyn Kelly’s newsmagazine, “Sunday Night,”
featuring her interview with Vladimir Putin. It
landed among the week’s 10 most-watched TV
shows and, although it lost to CBS’ “60 Minutes”
in the time slot, won among younger viewers.
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Basketball led ABC, which averaged 6.8 million
viewers, to a weekly victory in prime time. NBC
had 5.2 million viewers, CBS had 4.4 million,
Fox had 2.3 million, Univision had 1.5 million,
ION television had 1.3 million, Telemundo had
870,000 and the CW had 820,000.
Fox News Channel was the week’s most popular
cable network, averaging 2.21 million viewers in
prime time. HGTV had 1.49 million, MSNBC had
1.32 million, USA had 1.27 million and TBS had
1.23 million.
ABC’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening
newscasts with an average of 7.5 million viewers.
NBC’s “Nightly News” was second with 7.1 million
and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.7 million.
For the week of May 29-June 4, the top 10
shows, their networks and viewerships: NBA
Finals: Cleveland vs. Golden State, Game 2, ABC,
19.69 million; NBA Finals: Cleveland vs. Golden
State, Game 1, ABC, 18.7 million; “America’s Got
Talent,” NBC 12.32 million; “World of Dance,” NBC,
9.71 million; “Little Big Shots,” NBC, 7.45 million;
“NCIS,” CBS, 7.35 million; “60 Minutes,” CBS, 6.79
million; “The Big Bang Theory,” CBS, 6.73 million;
“Bull,” CBS, 6.51 million; “Sunday Night with
Megyn Kelly,” NBC, 6.2 million.
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW
is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox
is owned by 21st Century Fox. NBC and Telemundo are owned by
Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks.
Online:
http://www.nielsen.com
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Image: Alexei Druzhinin
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Image: Kim Ju-sung

S. KOREA’S
EX-HEALTH
MINISTER GUILTY
OF SWAYING
SAMSUNG VOTE
A court has convicted South Korea’s former
health minister of pressuring the country’s
pension fund to support a merger of two
Samsung companies.
The merger was crucial in Samsung’s father-toson
leadership succession but faced opposition
from U.S. hedge fund Elliott Management and
other minority shareholders. Support from the
National Pension Service was crucial to ensure
shareholder approval.
The Seoul Central District Court said Thursday
that Moon Hyung-pyo, the former health chief
who oversaw the National Pension Service, was
sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison. He was found
guilty of abusing power to sway the pension
fund’s vote on the 2015 merger of Samsung C&T
and Cheil Industries.
The ruling is among the first on key players
in the corruption scandals that ensnared the
country’s ousted president and Samsung’s heir.
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NORTH KOREA,
CYBERATTACKS
AND ‘LAZARUS’:
WHAT WE
REALLY KNOW
With the dust now settling after “WannaCry”,
the biggest ransomware attack in history,
cybersecurity experts are taking a deep dive
into how it was carried out, what can be done
to protect computers from future breaches and,
trickiest of all, who is really to blame.
For many, it seems that last question has already
been solved: It was North Korea.
But beyond the frequently used shorthand that
North Korea was likely behind the attack lies a
more complicated - and enlightening - story: the
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ise of an infamous group of workaholic hackers,
collectively known as “Lazarus,” who may be
using secret lairs in northeast China and have
created a virtual “malware factory” that could
wreak a lot more havoc in the future.
Big caveat here: Lazarus doesn’t reveal much
about itself. What little is known about the
group is speculative.
Nevertheless, extensive forensic research into
its activities dating back almost a decade paints
a fascinating, if chilling, picture of a hacker
collective that is mercenary, tenacious and
motivated by what appears to be a mixture of
political and financial objectives.
Their fingerprints are all over WannaCry.
So who, then, are they?
OPERATION BLOCKBUSTER
On Dec. 19, 2014, just one month after a
devastating hack hobbled Sony Pictures
Entertainment, the FBI’s field office in San Diego
issued a press release stating North Korea was
the culprit and saying such cyberattacks pose
“one of the gravest national security dangers” to
the United States.
“The destructive nature of this attack, coupled
with its coercive nature, sets it apart,” the
statement said. “North Korea’s actions were
intended to inflict significant harm on a U.S.
business and suppress the right of American
citizens to express themselves. Such acts
of intimidation fall outside the bounds of
acceptable state behavior.”
The FBI listed similarities in specific lines of
code, encryption algorithms, data deletion
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methods and compromised networks for its
determination. It said there was a significant
overlap between the infrastructure used in the
attack and other cyberactivity it had previously
linked directly to North Korea, including several
internet protocol addresses hardcoded into the
data deletion malware.
Its claim that North Korea was to blame has
since been widely disputed.
In an attempt to analyze the Sony Hack, an
industry consortium led by Novetta launched
“Operation Blockbuster,” which in 2016 released
the most detailed public report to date on
the attack. Its findings lined up with the FBI’s
conclusion that the tactics, tools and capabilities
strongly indicated the work of a “structured,
resourced and motivated organization,” but
said its analysis could not support the direct
attribution of a nation-state.
Instead, it determined the attack “was carried
out by a single group, or potentially very closely
linked groups, sharing technical resources,
infrastructure and even tasking.”
It named the group Lazarus.
Operation Blockbuster traced the first inklings of
Lazarus activity to 2009, or possibly to 2007, with
large-scale denial of service attacks on U.S. and
South Korean websites. That was followed by
the “Operation Troy” cyberespionage campaign
that lasted from 2009 to 2013; “Ten Days of Rain,”
which used compromised computers for denial
of service attacks on South Korean media and
financial institutions and U.S. military facilities;
and “DarkSeoul,” an attack on South Korean
broadcasting companies and banks.
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“This is a determined adversary with the
resources to develop unique, mission-oriented
malware tools,” the 100-page report concluded.
NORTH KOREAN HACKERS OR
CYBER-MERCENARIES?
Researchers at cybersecurity giant Kaspersky
Labs, which also participated in Operation
Blockbuster, analyzed timestamps on accounts
suspected of being linked to Lazarus to create a
profile of its hackers.
They surmised the attackers are probably
located in a time zone eight or nine hours
ahead of Greenwich Mean Time - which would
include China, Malaysia and parts of Indonesia,
among other places - because they seem to start
working at around midnight GMT and break for
lunch three hours later.
They even claimed the hackers get roughly 6-7
hours of sleep per night.
“This indicates a very hard-working team,
possibly more hard working than any other
Advanced Persistent Threat group we’ve
analyzed,” it said. It also said the reference
sample of suspected Lazarus activity indicated
at least one resource in the Korean language on
a majority of the computers being used.
“The group rapidly develops, mutates and
evolves malware through the extensive use of
a ‘malware factory,’” said James Scott, a senior
fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure
Technology, a Washington-based think tank.
“Essentially, it is believed that they subcontract
or outsource the rapid development of new
malware and malware variants to numerous
external threat actors.”
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Scott said any connections between Lazarus
and North Korea remain unclear, but four
possibilities exist:
- Lazarus is affiliated with North Korea;
- it is an independent side operation of persons
affiliated with North Korea;
- it is entirely independent of North Korea;
- it is a cyber-mercenary collective that
occasionally works on behalf of North Korea.
“There is no conclusive evidence that Lazarus is
state-sponsored,” Scott said, adding that it has
instead “always exhibited the characteristics of a
well-resourced and organized cybercriminal or
cyber-mercenary collective.”
Jon Condra, director of Asia-Pacific research at
the cybersecurity firm Flashpoint, cautiously
noted the theory that at least some Lazarus
Group hackers are likely working out of China
and that they may include North Koreans.
Flashpoint analyzed the WannaCry ransom
notes posted in 28 languages and determined
all but three were created using translation
software - suggesting its authors include human
members who are native in Chinese and fluent
but not perfect in English.
“It is widely believed that at least some
North Korean hacking units operate out of
Northeastern China - the city of Shenyang, in
particular - but hard evidence is scant,” he said.
“It is entirely possible that the Lazarus Group is
not entirely made up of North Korean actors, but
may also have Chinese members.”
Even that, he added, is speculative: “We really do
not have a clear picture of the composition of
the Lazarus Group.”
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AN EVER-MORPHING ADVERSARY
Kaspersky took another look into Lazarus after
the attempted heist of $900 million from the
central bank of Bangladesh in February last year.
It found Lazarus is both accelerating its activities
and morphing rapidly.
According to Kaspersky, the Lazarus Group
now has its own cybercrime subgroup, dubbed
BlueNoroff, to help finance its operations
through attacks on banks, casinos, financial
institutions and traders.
“The scale of Lazarus operations is shocking,” its
report said. “It’s something that requires strict
organization and control at all stages of the
operation. ... Such a process requires a lot of
money to keep running the business.”
The disruptive and “asymmetric” nature of
cyber warfare clearly makes it a weapon North
Korea can be assumed to want to exploit
against its much more powerful adversaries in a
military conflict.
Cybercrime would also seem to be extremely
attractive to North Korea.
It’s hard to trace, can be done on the cheap and,
for those who can master the technological
expertise, the opportunities seem to be
everywhere. It would also seem to be a less risky
means of procuring illicit income than other
activities the North Korean regime has been
accused of in the past, like drug trafficking and
counterfeiting U.S. $100 bills.
Washington, Seoul and defectors from North
Korea all claim the North is working hard to
train an army of cyber warriors, mainly within its
primary intelligence agency, the Reconnaissance
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Image: Andrew Brookes

General Bureau. South Korea said North Korea’s
cyber army consisted of 6,800 hackers in 2015.
But independent experts tend not to take such
claims too literally.
Scott and Condra caution that much of what is
reported about North Korea’s cyber army comes
from defectors or rival governments with a spin
motive and is amplified by partisan or attentionseeking
media. Defectors’ insights are valuable,
yes. But even if they’re not politically motivated,
they are limited by the scope of their access and
inside knowledge - and are usually significantly
out of date.
STILL-MISSING LINKS
The U.S. government has not blamed WannaCry
on North Korea.
“We know North Korea possesses the capability of
doing this kind of thing but we are still assessing
what the source is,” National Intelligence Director
Dan Coats told a congressional hearing last week.
Coats added, however, that cyberattacks are
possibly “the most significant threat to the United
States at this time.”
Pinning a cybercrime to a cybercriminal is a
Sisyphean task. A known group might claim
responsibility. It might use a traceable internet
protocol address, or a unique code. Its methods
and tools may reveal a pattern. Often, it will do
all of the above and more in an attempt to lead
investigators down a false path.
Determining the role of a nation-state can be
even more difficult.
Some campaigns that have been attributed
to the Lazarus Group suggest a lower-skilled
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adversary than one might expect from one with
full state backing - a factor that Beau Woods, the
deputy director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative
at the Atlantic Council, says is indicative of “a
blurred line” between state and non-state actors.
“Many countries allow, or at least tolerate,
non-state actors that are doing things that
are ideologically aligned,” he said. “With North
Korea, it appears to be the case that they rely
very heavily on this kind of criminal elementamateurs-professionals.
It’s a predominance of
question marks.”
“The big lesson we learned from WannaCry,
no matter who did it, is just how vulnerable,
prone and exposed some of our critical pieces of
infrastructure are,” he said. “When the stakes are
so high, we owe it more diligence than what we
have seen so far.”
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Image: Bloomberg
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AS GULF
TENSIONS
FLARE, REPORTS
OF HACKING
POUR IN
As tensions flare between Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Iran and their allies, reports of hacking are
emerging across the Gulf.
The Qatar-based satellite news network Al-
Jazeera said Thursday that it was being buffeted
by increasingly serious electronic intrusions
that it described as “systematic and continual.”
The station gave few other details, saying only
that its system had not been compromised.
Meanwhile a series of largely lightly
trafficked Saudi websites were vandalized
by hackers who left messages in Farsi and
photographs of Ayatollahs Ali Khamenei
and Ruhollah Khomeini, the current and late
supreme leaders of Iran respectively.
Low-level hacking is typical in times of
heightened international tensions. Qatar has
been at the center of a regional tug-of-war
between Iran, on the one hand, and Saudi
Arabia and its allies on the other.
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222

5 WORKERS EXPOSED
TO RADIATION AT
JAPAN NUCLEAR LAB
Five workers at a Japanese nuclear facility that
handles plutonium have been exposed to high
levels of radiation after a bag containing highly
radioactive material apparently broke during
equipment inspection, the country’s Atomic
Energy Agency said Wednesday.
The incident occurred Tuesday at its Oarai
Research & Development Center, a facility
for nuclear fuel study that uses highly toxic
plutonium. The cause of the accident is under
investigation, the state-run agency said. It raised
a nuclear security concern as well as a question
whether the handlers were adequately protected.
The agency said its initial survey found
contamination inside the nostrils of three of the
223

five men - a sign they inhaled radioactive dust.
All five were also found to be contaminated on
their limbs after removing protective gear and
taking a shower, which would have washed off
most contamination.
Agency spokesman Masataka Tanimoto said one
of the men indicated high levels of plutonium
exposure in his lungs, with the dose showing
nearly 1,000 times that of his earlier nostril survey.
Internal exposure poses a bigger concern
because of its potential cancer-causing risks.
The figure, 22,000 Becquerels, could mean
exposure levels in the lungs may not be
immediately life-threatening.
Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi
Tanaka blamed work routine complacency as a
possible cause.
The Oarai workers did not have any visible signs
of health problems, Tanimoto said. They were
taken to a special radiation medical institute for
further checks.
Japan’s possession of large numbers of plutonium
stockpiles, from the country’s struggling nuclear
spent-fuel recycling program, has already faced
international criticism. Critics say Japan should
stop extracting plutonium, which could be used
to develop nuclear weapons.
To reduce the stockpile, Japan plans to burn
plutonium in the form of MOX fuel - mixture
of plutonium and uranium - in conventional
reactors. But nuclear plant startups are still
coming slowly amid persistent anti-nuclear
sentiment since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear
reactor meltdown in the wake of an earthquake
and tsunami.
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