poaching
Latest
PAWS anti-poaching AI predicts where illegal hunters will show up next
AI and machine learning systems are poised to drastically improve wildlife rangers’ effectiveness by helping them not only track where poachers have been but also predict where they are most likely to turn up.
WildLeaks: The whistleblowing site for planet Earth
“Really, fuck fuck fuck fuck, fuck” Andrea Crosta tells the driver of the car he just got in. Crosta is the founder of WildLeaks, a whistleblowing site for environmental crime, and he’s just aborted an undercover operation with a prominent ivory trader in China. Crosta wasn’t alone, and his collaborator’s hidden camera was spotted after she conspicuously moved her purse in front of some illegal merchandise.
DeepMind uses AI to track Serengeti wildlife with photos
DeepMind has joined the ranks of those using AI to save fragile wildlife populations, and it's doing that on a grand scale. The company is partnering with conservationists and ecologists on a project that uses machine learning to speedily detect and count animals in "millions" of photos taken over the past nine years in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park. Where it normally takes up to a year for volunteers to return labeled photos, DeepMind has developed a model that can label most animals at least as well as humans while shortening the process by up to nine months That's no small challenge when animals seldom cooperate with motion-sensitive cameras -- the AI can recognize out-of-focus cheetahs or fast-moving ostriches.
Intel-powered camera uses AI to protect endangered African wildlife
Technology is already in use to help stop poachers. However, it's frequently limited to monitoring poachers when they're already in shooting range, or after the fact. The non-profit group Resolve vows to do better -- it recently developed a newer version of its TrailGuard camera that uses AI to spot poachers in Africa before they can threaten an endangered species. It uses an Intel-made computer vision processor (the Movidius Myriad 2) that can detect animals, humans and vehicles in real-time, giving park rangers a chance to intercept poachers before it's too late.
Netflix reportedly poaches Activision executive to fill CFO role
After months of searching, Netflix appears to have a replacement for outgoing chief financial officer David Wells... and it's creating corporate drama in the process. Reuters and Wall Street Journal sources say Netflix is close to naming Activision Blizzard CFO Spencer Neumann as its pick, with a start date sometime in early 2019. There's only one problem: his contract at Activision hasn't expired yet, and his soon-to-be-former employer is clearly angry about it.
eBay claims Amazon illegally poaches sellers for its marketplace
The competition between online marketplaces is getting to be particularly ugly. eBay has sent a cease-and-desist letter alleging that Amazon has illegally tried to poach sellers for its marketplace. According to the accusation, about 50 Amazon sales agents sent 1,000-plus messages through eBay's system in a bid to sway sellers to its platform. The poaching allegedly violates California's Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act.
Researchers tap AI in fight against elephant poachers
Cornell University's Elephant Listening Project is a research effort that tracks African forest elephants through acoustic recordings. Part of the project is geared toward conservation and tracking these elephant populations through the animals' calls helps researchers monitor their movements and, ideally, protect them from poachers. But the project generates seven terabytes of data every three months and it takes researchers up to 12 weeks to analyze the audio recordings they collect. That amount of time hampers any response to threats, but a new collaboration is using AI to analyze the data more quickly.
Tech giants like Google and Alibaba are working to save endangered species
Google, eBay and other technology leaders are aiming to protect the world's animals. Why? In a widely unregulated social-media world, many tech platforms have become a haven for the wildlife black market, a $20 billion industry. The sale of illegal animal goods -- from ivory to exotic pets -- is the fourth-largest criminal global trade industry behind narcotics, counterfeiting and human trafficking, according to TRAFFIC, a wildlife-trade-monitoring network. In the past decade, the sale of these goods and species has moved from illicit backroom dealings in stores to apps and online shopping ads.
Drones and AI help stop poaching in Africa
Several organizations are already using drones to fight poaching, but the Lindbergh Foundation is taking it one step further. The environmental non-profit has joined forces with Neurala in order to use the company's deep learning neural network AI to boost the capabilities of the drones in its Air Shepherd program. Neurala taught its technology what elephants, rhinos and poachers look like, so it can accurately pinpoint and mark them in videos. It will now put the AI to work sifting through all the footage the foundation's drones beam back in real time, including infrared footage taken at night.
E-bike company blames Apple poaching for its demise
When promising EV company Mission Motorcycles went bankrupt last month, it said that "we have not earned any cash (or) revenue of any kind." However, it's now putting part of the blame on Apple, claiming that it poached several of its top engineers at a critical time. Mission told Reuters that an investor withdrew crucial funding after two of its key engineers left for Apple, and the company ran out of cash shortly afterwards. "Mission had a great group of of engineers... Apple knew that -- they wanted it, and they went and got it," said CEO Derek Kaufman.
After Math: The price of doing business
This week on the After Math, we're all about the benjamins. Between four major corporations shelling out $413 million over an employee anti-poaching scheme, the feds spending $133 million to protect victims of the OPM breach and the new cost of Hulu doing what every other streaming service on the market already does, there's a whole bunch of money changing hands.
Rhino horn cameras promise to catch poachers in the act
Anti-poaching teams can only do so much to protect rhinos. Their immediate presence can deter rogue hunters, but a lot of the slaughter happens before these teams even know that something's wrong. That's where non-profit group Protect's RAPID (Real-Time Anti-Poaching Intelligence Device) should come in handy. The system uses a blend of heart rate sensors, GPS tags and cameras drilled into one of the rhinos' horns (don't worry, it's painless) to warn conservationists when a rhino is under threat. If a rhino's heart starts racing or suddenly goes still, observers get an alert that lets them turn on the camera to see if something's wrong. Ideally, this will prevent poachers from even firing a shot -- they know that they'll likely be caught within minutes if they chase or kill a tagged animal.
Jawbone sues Fitbit for 'plundering' product information
Jawbone is suing its archrival, Fitbit, for "systematically plundering" confidential information. According to the complaint, Fitbit recruiters attempted to poach almost one-third of Jawbone's staff. Some of those employees left the company, but not before downloading "critical trade secrets" including business plans and product details. The accusation comes right on the heels of Fitbit's decision to go public. The company, which sold 10.9 million wearable devices last year, filed for an IPO of up to $100 million earlier this month.
Daily Roundup: build your own PC, Lenovo adware and more!
Are you thinking about putting together a new PC? Check out our handy guide to help get started. In other news, some Lenovo PCs have been found shipping with factory-installed adware, Sony could scrap its mobile business and a new lawsuit filed against Apple alleges that the company poached a number of engineers for an electric car battery project. All that and more can be found just past the break.
EV battery-maker says Apple poached engineers for its new project
Did you hear that Apple might be working on a car, or at least something that heavily involves cars? It's reportedly already got quite a team working away at the project. But, those employees had to come from somewhere, right? According to a lawsuit from electric car battery maker A123 Systems, Apple has been poaching its best engineers, apparently to work in a battery division of its own. The company alleges poaching started back in June 2014, with Apple drawing away lead engineers from the battery maker's "most critical projects." According to the filing from Massachusetts federal court: "Apple is currently developing a large-scale battery division to compete in the very same field as A123."
Apple and Google try again to avoid a trial in 'no-poaching' suit
When Adobe, Apple, Google and Intel first offered a settlement to workers to make up for shady no-poaching pacts that kept salaries down, both the court and plaintiffs balked. They thought the $324.5 million was too low given the years of allegedly lost income and the financial clout of the tech giants involved. The Silicon Valley quartet is ready to give it a second shot, though. They've reached a new settlement that they hope will pass muster and avoid a full-blown trial in April.
Officers' Quarters: 6 tips for officers on soon-to-be-connected realms
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. Blizzard began the process of connecting realms a few weeks ago. After two successful connections, Blizzard is finally picking up the pace. Last week, they announced six more pairs that will soon become one. For officers, the weeks before and after a realm connection will be a crucial time. Here are some tips to put your guild in the best possible position within your newly forged community. 1. Don't wait for the connection. If you intend to recruit from the new population, the time to do so is right after the connection is announced. Players who are looking for guilds on the combined realms will start shopping around immediately. The guilds who are proactive in this phase are more likely to land those players. Visit the other realm's forums and say hi. You can post a recruiting announcement there, certainly, but you can do more than that. Introduce yourself. Ask questions about the realm you'll be connecting to and get to know the players there. Strike up conversations and become someone that forum users not only recognize, but like and respect. They will be far more likely to consider joining your guild when the time comes if they already know that an officer in the guild is a decent human being. You can take that one step further and roll an alt on the other realm prior to the connection. There's no better way to get to know a new realm than to play on it and meet the players there "in person."
AllThingsD outs details of Apple's BlackBerry 'employee poaching party'
Yesterday, we briefly mentioned how Apple was trying to hire some of the more than 4,500 BlackBerry employees who recently lost their jobs thanks to continued bad earnings news at the Canadian company. Today, AllThingsD provided more details on what it called a "poaching party" held by Apple in Cambridge, Ontario. That "party" on September 26 -- actually a recruiting event -- was about a 15-minute drive from BlackBerry's headquarters in nearby Waterloo. A number of BlackBerry employees received invitations from Apple via LinkedIn, and AllThingsD's John Paczkowski got word that "it was well-attended." Here's a look at the wording of the invitation. It will be interesting to find out just how many BlackBerry employees end up getting offers from Apple and moving to Cupertino. If you are interested in working on the world's most advanced mobile devices and operating systems as well as alongside other amazing, talented and passionate engineers then Apple may have opportunities for you. Apple's Engineering and Operations Recruiting Team is hosting a career event in your town! We will have Hiring Managers and Recruiters present to talk about exciting opportunities throughout Apple. The career event will be on Thursday, September 26th from 10 am to 2 pm, and from 3 pm to 7 pm. ... Please bring multiple copies of your resume on the day of the event as there may be a chance to speak with multiple hiring managers. Most positions will be based in Cupertino, CA. Relocation and immigration assistance will be provided for candidates that are hired, as needed. You can check out all Apple career opportunities by visiting www.apple.com/jobs. Thank you and we hope to see you in person Thursday, September 26th. If you happen to know of others that might be interested in attending, please pass along this invite as we would love to meet them as well. Warm Regards, Apple's Recruiting Team
Officers' Quarters: Charter pirates
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. I never thought I'd be writing an OQ column about intellectual property, but here we are: Hi Scott, I'll make this short and to the point, because I'm honestly at the end of my rope with just how disrespectful, inconsiderate, and shady some folks who play this game are. Without going into too much detail, we removed some folks from our guild a few weeks ago; they tried to poach our members and couldn't, so they ended up stealing our charter instead. I found out because I noticed them advertising in trade chat, so I scoped their website out. Lo and behold, there were MY words I worked so dutifully on, for many hours, over the course of a few weeks, with my co-GM and other officers. This charter was the result of almost a year's worth of questions, concerns, comments, and experiences we all have shared since forming our guild, and to see another guild just blatantly rip it off was infuriating.
Steve Jobs reportedly threatened Palm over anti-poaching agreement
Documents released in a civil lawsuit against Apple and other high-profile tech companies claim Steve Jobs threatened to sue Palm if it refused to sign an anti-poaching agreement. Defendants in the lawsuit asked the court to keep these documents sealed, but Judge Lucy Koh denied this request, according to Reuters. The civil suit focuses on anti-poaching agreements signed by Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit and Pixar. The agreements would prevent these companies from stealing talented employees from each other. The DOJ eventually stepped in and forced the companies to stop entering into these anticompetitive no solicitation agreements. Former Palm CEO Edward Colligan said in an affidavit that the Jobs tried to coerce Palm into participating in an anti-poaching agreement after the company hired a handful of Apple employees. "As a solution, Mr. Jobs proposed an arrangement between Palm and Apple by which neither company would hire the other's employees, including high-tech employees," Colligan said. "Mr. Jobs also suggested that if Palm did not agree to such an arrangement, Palm could face lawsuits alleging infringement of Apple's many patents." Colligan provided copies of emails sent between himself and Jobs to support this accusation. Tim Cook is slated to give a deposition on this matter, and other high-ranking executives from Google and Intel are also expected to be questioned in the next few weeks. [Via AppleInsider]
