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Christians need Ottawa's protection insists Conservative MP supported by the U.S. VP electBy Lizette Chapman | Bloomberg Software company Palantir Technologies and Costa Mesa-based weapons maker Anduril Industries plan to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence in the US military and are inviting other companies to join the effort. Under an agreement announced Friday, battlefield information created by sensors, vehicles, robots and weapons will be collected by Anduril’s Lattice software and then pulled into a secure Palantir platform that will prepare the data for use in AI training and development. The data gathered would include information classified at the highest levels of secrecy. The move is the latest in a series of partnerships announced by defense tech companies this week seeking to put AI technology to greater use in military applications. On Wednesday, Anduril unveiled plans to work with OpenAI on anti-drone systems, and Palantir on Thursday signed an accord with Shield AI to collaborate on autonomous flight systems. The agreements highlight the growing importance of artificial intelligence to the US military as it seeks to maintain an edge over China and other adversaries, creating an opening for contractors to deliver new technology. Palantir’s partnership with Anduril builds on years of coordination between the two companies backed by billionaire venture investor Peter Thiel and signals an expansion of Silicon Valley’s role in reshaping the US defense industry. Earlier this year, Palantir won the US Army’s Titan contract, making it the first software company to win a prime contract and propelling its government business past analyst estimates. The Denver-based company, co-founded by Thiel in 2003, has seen huge demand for its AI products from both commercial and government customers, sending its shares soaring. At more than $173 billion, its market capitalization now surpasses that of Lockheed Martin Corp. Co-founded by early Palantir employee and Founders Fund General Partner Trae Stephens, Anduril sells its reusable rockets, drones and submarines and related software platform Lattice to the US and allied countries. Investors last valued it at $14 billion on expectations of continued growth in those sectors as it builds a factory to increase production while exploring new growth areas. Last month, it won a contract with the US Space Command. Despite progress by startups like Anduril in winning defense dollars, venture-backed startups are far from replacing legacy defense contractors. Elon Musk’s SpaceX won more than 80% of all government spending awarded to startups tracked by the Silicon Valley Defense Group, according to a report earlier this year that doesn’t include Palantir because it is public. Executives from companies including Palantir and Anduril along with Musk have called for changes in how the Defense Department purchases weapons and other technology to be faster, cheaper and more streamlined. Musk, the world’s richest man, was asked by President-elect Donald Trump to co-chair an advisory panel to make the US government more efficient. In announcing their new AI effort Friday, Palantir and Anduril described it as a consortium they intend to eventually expand to other industry partners. “No single company is capable of delivering on the promise of AI for national security,” they said in their announcement. “It takes a team of companies that are willing and able to ensure that the U.S. government remains the world leader in fielding advanced technologies that keep our citizens safe.” Related Articles Business | Can AI chatbots make your holiday shopping easier? Business | OpenAI Sam Altman ‘not that worried’ about rival Elon Musk’s influence in the Trump administration Business | Apple readies more conversational Siri in bid to catch up in AI Business | Siri gets smarter as Apple adds AI to iPhone Business | How Big Tech won big against regulation in California this year
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — The European Union reached a blockbuster free trade agreement Friday with Brazil, Argentina and the three other South American nations in the Mercosur trade alliance, capping a quarter-century of on-off negotiations even as France vowed to derail the contentious accord . Provided it is ratified, the accord would create one of the world's largest free trade zones, covering a market of 780 million people that represents nearly a quarter of global gross domestic product. The accord's proponents in Brussels say it would save businesses some $4.26 billion in duties each year, slashing red tape and removing tariffs on products like Italian wine, Argentine steak, Brazilian oranges and German Volkswagens. Its critics in France, the Netherlands and other countries with big dairy and beef industries say the pact would subject local farmers to unfair competition and cause environmental damage . From Uruguay, the host of the Mercosur summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the deal as a “truly historic milestone" at a time when global protectionism is on the rise. “I know that strong winds are blowing in the opposite direction, toward isolation and fragmentation, but this agreement is our clear response,” von der Leyen said, an apparent reference to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's vows to protect American workers and goods. Under pressure from his country's powerful and vocal farming lobby, French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday the deal remained “unacceptable” as it stands and stressed that governments have not yet seen “the final outcome” of negotiations. “The agreement has neither been signed nor ratified. This is not the end of the story,” Macron's office said, adding that France demands additional safeguards for farmers and commitments to sustainable development and health controls. For France to block the deal, it would need the support of three or more other EU member states representing at least 35% of the bloc's population. The French government, which has been rallying countries to oppose the pact, named Austria, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland as other wary states that share French concerns about the deal. To take effect, the pact must also be endorsed by the European Parliament. In remarks aimed at her “fellow Europeans,” and perhaps in particular French skeptics, von der Leyen promised the accord would boost 60,000 businesses through lower tariffs , streamlined customs procedures and preferential access to raw materials otherwise supplied by China. “This will create huge business opportunities,” von der Leyen said. She then turned to address European farmers who fear that an influx of cheap food imports will jeopardize their livelihoods. South American countries do not have to adhere to the same standards for animal treatment and pesticide use. “We have heard you, listened to your concerns, and we are acting on them,” von der Leyen said. Outrage over environmental rules, rising costs and unregulated imports has unleashed massive farmers’ protests across the continent over the past year. Leaders on both sides of the Atlantic who long have pushed for the deal praised the announcement Friday, welcoming the results as a boon for export industries. It marks the first major trade agreement for Mercosur, which is comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and, newly, Bolivia. The bloc had previously only managed to conclude free-trade deals with Egypt, Israel and Singapore. “An important obstacle to the agreement has been overcome,” said Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, where the nation's vaunted car industry is poised to profit. From Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the agreement “an unprecedented economic bridge." At the Mercosur summit in Uruguay’s capital of Montevideo, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva praised “a modern and balanced text which recognizes Mercosur’s environmental credentials." “We are securing new markets for our exports and strengthening investment flows,” he said. The Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency said it expects the pact to boost the nation's Europe-bound exports by $7 billion. Libertarian President Javier Milei of Argentina described the accord as aligning with his free market principles. Argentines are excited about selling more beef and agricultural products in the EU. The deal is the product of 25 years of painstaking negotiations , dating back to a Mercosur summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1999. Talks collapsed over differences in economic priorities , regulatory standards and agricultural policies. The rise of protectionist tendencies also repeatedly upended hopes. Momentum picked up in 2016, as former President Trump imposed harsh tariffs on Europe. At the same time, market-friendly governments came to power in South America's biggest economies, Brazil and Argentina, which had been closed for years. In June 2019, negotiators announced a deal that included provisions for tariff reductions and commitments to environmental standards. But it was never implemented. In Brazil, the region's economic powerhouse, right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, presided over record levels of deforestation in the Amazon , prompting EU governments to demand tougher sustainability criteria . In Argentina, a new left-wing protectionist government opposed the deal. But things picked up as the region's politics shifted again in 2023. Brazil's President Lula rode to power on pledges to rein in illegal logging , soothing concerns that the pact could accelerate deforestation . Argentina's Milei is working to open the nation's notoriously closed and crisis-stricken economy. But if past EU trade agreements are any indication, ratification could take years. "We celebrate it, but it's still far from reality,” Milei said of the accord. In 2016, the EU and Canada signed a pact, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, but the approval process is still lumbering along. Germany’s parliament only signed off on that pact two years ago, and the French Senate rejected it in March this year . “Anyone with any memory is skeptical," said Brian Winter, a vice president of the New York-based Council of the Americas. “They have trotted out leaders and declared victory and celebrated, and yet there always seems to be a hitch.” DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press writers Mauricio Savarese in São Paulo, David Biller in Rio de Janeiro, Lorne cook in Brussels and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.
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Fulfillment Services Market to Set Phenomenal Growth by 2032 | DHL, FedEx Supply Chain, ShipBobNearly all the big AI news this year was about how fast the technology is progressing, the harms it’s causing, and speculation about how soon it will grow past the point where humans can control it. But 2024 also saw governments make significant inroads into regulating algorithmic systems. Here is a breakdown of the most important AI legislation and regulatory efforts from the past year at the state, federal, and international levels. State U.S. state lawmakers took the lead on AI regulation in 2024, introducing hundreds of bills —some had modest goals like creating study committees, while others would have imposed serious civil liability on AI developers in the event their creations cause catastrophic harm to society. The vast majority of the bills failed to pass, but several states enacted meaningful legislation that could serve as models for other states or Congress (assuming Congress ever starts functioning again). As AI slop flooded social media ahead of the election, politicians in both parties got behind anti-deepfake laws. More than 20 states now have prohibitions against deceptive AI-generated political advertisements in the weeks immediately before an election. Bills aimed at curbing AI-generated pornography, particularly images of minors, also received strong bipartisan support in states including Alabama, California, Indiana, North Carolina, and South Dakota. Unsurprisingly, given that it’s the backyard of the tech industry, some of the most ambitious AI proposals came out of California. One high-profile bill would have forced AI developers to take safety precautions and held companies liable for catastrophic damages caused by their systems. That bill passed both bodies of the legislature amid a fierce lobbying effort but was ultimately vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom. Newsom did, however, sign more than a dozen other bills aimed at less apocalyptic but more immediate AI harms. One new California law requires health insurers to ensure that the the AI systems they use to make coverage determinations are fair and equitable. Another requires generative AI developers to create tools that label content as AI-generated. And a pair of bills prohibits the distribution of a dead person’s AI-generated likeness without prior consent and mandates that agreements for living peoples’ AI-generated likenesses must clearly specify how the content will be used. Colorado passed a first-of-its-kind in the U.S. law requiring companies that develop and use AI systems to take reasonable steps to ensure the tools aren’t discriminatory. Consumer advocates called the legislation an important baseline . It’s likely that similar bills will be hotly debated in other states in 2025. And, in a middle finger to both our future robot overlords and the planet, Utah enacted a law that prohibits any governmental entity from granting legal personhood to artificial intelligence, inanimate objects, bodies of water, atmospheric gases, weather, plants, and other non-human things. Federal Congress talked a lot about AI in 2024, and the House ended the year by releasing a 273-page bipartisan report outlining guiding principles and recommendations for future regulation. But when it came to actually passing legislation, federal lawmakers did very little. Federal agencies, on the other hand, were busy all year trying to meet the goals set out in President Joe Biden’s 2023 executive order on AI. And several regulators, particularly the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, cracked down on misleading and harmful AI systems. The work agencies did to comply with the AI executive order wasn’t particularly sexy or headline grabbing, but it laid important foundations for the governance of public and private AI systems in the future. For example, federal agencies embarked on an AI-talent hiring spree and created standards for responsible model development and harm mitigation. And, in a big step toward increasing the public’s understanding of how the government uses AI, the Office of Management and Budget wrangled (most of) its fellow agencies into disclosing critical information about the AI systems they use that may impact people’s rights and safety. On the enforcement side, the FTC’s Operation AI Comply targeted companies using AI in deceptive ways, such as to write fake reviews or provide legal advice, and it sanctioned AI-gun detection company Evolv for making misleading claims about what its product could do. The agency also settled an investigation with facial recognition company IntelliVision, which it accused of falsely saying its technology was free of racial and gender bias, and banned the pharmacy chain Rite Aid from using facial recognition for five years after an investigation determined the company was using the tools to discriminate against shoppers. The DOJ, meanwhile, joined state attorneys general in a lawsuit accusing the real estate software company RealPage of a massive algorithmic price-fixing scheme that raised rents across the nation. It also won several anti-trust lawsuits against Google, including one involving the company’s monopoly over internet searches that could significantly shift the balance of power in the burgeoning AI search industry. Global In August, the European Union’s AI Act went into effect . The law, which is already serving as a model for other jurisdictions, requires AI systems that perform high-risk functions, such as assisting with hiring or medical decisions, to undergo risk mitigation and meet certain standards around training data quality and human oversight. It also bans the use of other AI systems, such as algorithms that could be used to assign a country’s residents social scores that are then used to deny rights and privileges. In September, China issued a major AI safety governance framework . Like similar frameworks published by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, it’s non-binding but creates a common set of standards for AI developers to follow when identifying and mitigating risks in their systems. One of the most interesting pieces of AI policy legislation comes from Brazil. In late 2024, the country’s senate passed a comprehensive AI safety bill. It faces a challenging road forward, but if passed, it would create an unprecedented set of protections for the kinds of copyrighted material commonly used to train generative AI systems. Developers would have to disclose which copyrighted material was included in their training data, and creators would have the power to prohibit the use of their work for training AI systems or negotiate compensation agreements that would be based, in part, on the size of the AI developer and how the material would be used. Like the EU’s AI Act, the proposed Brazilian law would also require high-risk AI systems to follow certain safety protocols.
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Seaport Res Ptn Issues Negative Estimate for SPXC EarningsA digital camera may have been on a holiday gift wish list of a Gen Z in your life this season. If you're wondering why someone between the ages of 12 and 17 would want an outdated piece of technology, you're probably not doomscrolling enough, because digital point-and-shoots are trendy again and Gen Z is driving up their popularity in the same way they have with and . "We are seeing more young people looking for things like point-and-shoot cameras, which we literally can't keep on the shelves," said Evelyn Drake, who works at The Camera Store, a Calgary-based business along 11th Avenue S.W. Alongside brand new gear, the shop also sells second-hand cameras. Drake says they've been hearing from a lot of young customers who are gravitating toward a photography experience that's completely off their phones. "Hopefully manufacturers are really going to take note of that and start making more of them, because I think that there's a really big opportunity here," she said. "There's been more of a trend for the young Gen Z generation to look for different ways to express themselves with photography." On TikTok, has over 287,000 posts. Additionally, searches for the term "digital camera" have been on an upward trend in Canada for the past five years, peaking near the end of this year, according to . For comparative purposes, the image on the left was taken with a Nikon Coolpix S33 digital camera, while the image on the right was taken with an iPhone 13 at the same time in December. (Lily Dupuis/CBC) There's been extensive reporting on how Gen Z loves of so-called , or how the generation's fascination lies within the of a simpler, more technological , but perhaps the news cycle hasn't dug deep enough. Some say the behind Gen Z's affinity for yesterday's technology is more profound than just aesthetics. Based in Amsterdam, Sofia Lee is the co-founder of — an Instagram account and online community with over 13,000 followers — and the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (CARI), an online community that analyzes design and visual culture. Lee believes blaming nostalgia for the surging popularity of digital cameras among Gen Z doesn't tell the full story. "I think it's ironic that Gen Z is stereotyped as being the most logged-on generation, when a lot of their countercultural tech practices indicate the need to break away and create a space that is separate from the internet," said Lee. The aversion to smartphone photography, according to Lee, also comes from the fact that the images have become so HD and highly processed that they no longer feel like true pictures. Using a digital camera means "it's not uploaded instantly to the internet the way a phone image can be," she says. "It also undergoes a significantly more primitive set of algorithmic transformations in order to produce the JPEG image." It's no secret that today's young people are more connected than ever — according to from Statistics Canada, younger Canadians reported higher-than-average usage rates for various online activities, and in 2022, over 99 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 24 reported using the internet. But as younger generations become increasingly online, so too does the need to . Veronica Garcia is a 26-year-old based in Calgary who uses a Nikon Coolpix S4100 — a compact digital camera that launched in . "I love this thing.... The way I use it, I feel like it helps me be more in the moment instead of it being like a phone," she said, adding that a phone in 2024 has become so much more than just a device for calls. Garcia says most elder Gen Zs grew up in a time before the smartphone dominated everything, but also have been around for the transition to a new digital age. She says she first had unrestricted access to the internet at 13 years old, and it's been a big part of her life ever since. "It's been over a decade of the worms in my brain," she says, describing how being chronically online contributes to overall brain rot (Oxford's 2024 ). And Garcia's own tech habits aren't limited to photography. She also uses a little black flip phone as her daily cellphone, which she affectionately calls a "dumbphone," as well as a portable MP3 player to listen to music and a -era Canon ZR30MC digital camcorder for videos. "It's really just that shift toward being intentional with consumption and just how you spend your time on the screens that suck the soul out of you." Veronica Garcia holds up her nearly 25-year-old camcorder that she inherited from her dad. (Lily Dupuis/CBC) For Garcia, it's not really about being on-trend or conjuring up some nostalgia that romanticizes the past. On its most surface level, she says young people's affinity for digital cameras is a rejection of modernity. "Everything is political," said Garcia, adding that it's a small choice that ultimately helps her disconnect from big internet. Because people in their late 20s have had a front-row seat to the constantly evolving tech landscape, re-embracing these outdated machines might be a commentary on the pace of technology. A photographer herself, Lee expects the renaissance of digital point-and-shoot cameras won't be short-lived among this younger generation of photographers, as she's watched the community of digicam users grow over the years. Lee and her other @digicam.love co-founders have organized over 60 meet-ups for point-and-shoot appreciators across the globe since they founded the page in 2018. "On one hand, there is a trend happening, of course. I think that that's undeniable," Lee said. "But I also think that we could say film photography was a trend.... As you can see now, it still exists."