Ken Garen, CPA, Co-Founder and President, UBCC

If you could erase the worst memory of your life, would you? Scientists are working on a pill for that Researchers are working on ways to edit memories — to make the intolerable bearable — by, say, blocking the synaptic changes needed for a memory to solidify SHARON KIRKEY October 31, 2019 2:25 PM EDT The 60 souls that signed on for Dr. Alain Brunet’s memory manipulation study were united by something they would rather not remember. The trauma of betrayal. For some, it was infidelity and for others, a brutal, unanticipated abandonment. “It was like, ‘I’m leaving you. Goodbye,” the McGill University associate professor of psychiatry says. In cold, clinical terms, his patients were suffering from an “adjustment disorder” due to the termination (not of their choosing) of a romantic relationship. The goal of Brunet and other researchers is to help people like this — the scorned, the betrayed, the traumatized — lose their total recall. To deliberately forget. Over ...

Legislation Would Force Google and Rivals to Disclose Search Algorithms Senate bill aims to give users of search engines more control over personal data The legislation would provide for searches that aren’t filtered based on the user’s browsing activity, search history and geographical location.   By   John D. McKinnon Updated Oct. 31, 2019 4:21 pm ET WASHINGTON—Senate lawmakers proposed bipartisan legislation that would require search engines to disclose the algorithms they use in ranking internet searches and give consumers an option for unfiltered searches. Search engines such as  Alphabet  Inc.  ’s Google unit use a variety of measures to filter results for individual searches, such as the user’s browsing activity, search history and geographical location. Critics have increasingly complained about algorithms enabling online-search and social-media companies to determine the content users see, with some on the right claiming the resul...

Insanely humanlike androids have entered the workplace and soon may take your job Tim Hornyak October 31, 2019 KEY POINTS Russian start-up Promobot recently unveiled what it calls the world’s first android that looks just like a real person and can serve in a business capacity. Robo-C can be made to look like anyone, so it’s like an android clone. It comes with an artificial intelligence system that has more than 100,000 speech modules. ·           ·         It can perform workplace tasks, such as answering customer questions at offices, airports, banks and museums, while accepting payments. ·           ·         Hiroshi Ishiguro and his Japanese collaborators have created a number of androids that look like humans, including one called Erica, ...

Russia will disconnect from the Internet tomorrow to test cyber-war defences The test will see Russia revert to an internal version of the web called ‘RuNet’ which is isolated from the networks of other nations By Shivali Best 09:34, 31 OCT 2019 In a bid to protect itself from any  cyberattacks  ,  Russia  will disconnect from the global internet tomorrow. The test will see Russia revert to an internal version of the web called ‘RuNet’ which is isolated from the networks of other nations, according to a report by  D-Russia. While the Russian Government claims that the test is intended to shield Russian systems from a potential cyber-attack, critics claim that the tests are part of a wider attempt to isolate Russia’s citizens from the surrounding world. The D-Russia report writes: “On Monday, the government approved the provision on conducting exercises to ensure the stable, safe and holistic functioning of the Internet and public communications n...

Facebook Pays $644,000 UK Fine Over Cambridge Analytica Case, Doesn’t Admit Fault Social network to pay £500,000 after 87 million users had their information unwittingly accessed by Cambridge Analytica Sean Burch  | October 30, 2019 @ 7:59 AM Facebook has agreed to pay the Information Commissioner’s Office, the United Kingdom’s privacy regulator, a £500,000 fine on Wednesday over its Cambridge Analytica data leak, but did not admit any wrongdoing in the matter. The fine, equal to about $644,000 at current exchange rates, comes after more than a year of legal back-and-forth between the social network and U.K. regulators. It’s also the maximum amount the ICO could levy against Facebook; if the company’s infractions had come after Europe’s GDPR data privacy laws were implemented in 2018, Facebook could’ve been fined up to 4% of its annual global revenue. The Cambridge Analytica scandal rocked Facebook for much of 2018, after the company admitted that up to  87...

The ‘smart drugs’ revolution: how pharmaceuticals will leave us ‘accelerating into a 24/7 society’ By Alex Wilkins Wednesday 23 Oct 2019 9:23 am You probably know someone who takes cognitive-enhancing drugs. Pilots, heart surgeons, famous novelists, pressured city traders, renowned professors (and their students), as well as astronauts, soldiers and IT analysts, to name a few. If you asked them about their diphenylmethylsulfinylacetamide use, they’d stare at you blankly. But mention Modafinil, and they’d know that you know. ‘ With the knowledge economy, a lot of people require long periods of concentration and are having to use their brainpower for long periods of time,’ says Barbara Sahakian, professor of clinical neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge. ‘People are using [smart drugs] to keep competitive, to get into the best universities, and then to get the best exam scores.’ The use of smart drugs, like Modafinil, is at an unprecedented scale – and it ...

Robot judges 'will pass sentence with no human bias' in AI courts Increasing use of AI in legal system points the way to an all-robot courtroom By Michael Moran Audience Writer UPDATED 13:29, 19 OCT 2019 It’s likely that most people locked in our jails believe that with a better lawyer, a more lenient judge or a more understanding jury things might have been very different for them. Human error, they will say, is to blame for them being banged up. But can the human element be removed? Law firms are already using computer algorithms to perform background research other tasks traditionally performed by human staff. And that’s just the beginning. As computer researchers get closer to creating true Artificial Intelligence, it's predicted to eliminate most paralegal and legal research positions within the next decade. The next step inevitably involves artificial intelligences aiding, or even completely replacing lawyers. And if we have robot law...