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Saturday 16 december 2017 TECHNOLOGY
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What the FCC rollback of ‘net neutrality’ means to you

By BARBARA ORTUTAY and they’ll be involved in liti-
TALI ARBEL gation against Pai’s rules.
AP Technology Writer New York’s attorney gen-
Now that the federal gov- eral vowed to lead a multi-
ernment has rolled back state lawsuit; the attorneys
the internet protections general of Massachusetts
it put in place two years and Washington state also
ago, the big question is: announced plans to sue.
What does the repeal of “The fact that Chairman
“net neutrality’ rules mean Pai went through with this,
to you? a policy that is so unpopu-
In the short term, the an- lar, is somewhat shock-
swer is simple: Not much. ing,” said Mark Stanley,
But over time, your ability a spokesman for the civil
to watch what you want liberties organization De-
to watch online and to use mand Progress. “Unfortu-
the apps that you prefer nately, not surprising.”
could start to change. Rep. Mike Doyle, a Penn-
Your mobile carrier, for in- sylvania Democrat, said he
stance, might start offering would introduce legislation
you terrific deals for signing to overturn the FCC’s ac-
up to its own video service, tion , restoring the previous
just as your YouTube app net-neutrality rules. That
starts suffering unexpected move, however, could
connection errors. Or you face tough opposition, giv-
could wake one day to en that Republicans con-
learn that your broadband Diane Tepfer holds a sign with an image of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) trol both houses of Con-
provider is having a tiff with Chairman Ajit Pai as the “Grinch who Stole the Internet” as she protests near the FCC, in gress.
Amazon, and has slowed Washington, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017, where the FCC is scheduled to meet and vote on net ONCE THE KLIEG LIGHTS
down its shopping site in neutrality. FADE
order to extract business Associated Press Things could be different
concessions. assuming the rules survive
All of which would be per- web traffic must be treat- erned the internet for most sumer advocates, Demo- legal and congressional
fectly legal under the new ed equally. The move rep- of its existence.” crats, many web compa- challenges.
deregulatory regime ap- resents a radical departure Under the new rules ap- nies and ordinary Ameri- AT&T senior executive vice
proved Thursday by the from more than a decade proved Thursday, compa- cans afraid that the cable president Bob Quinn said in
Federal Communications of federal oversight. nies like Comcast, Verizon and phone giants will be a blog post that the inter-
Commission, so long as The big telecommunica- and AT&T would be free to able to control what peo- net “will continue to work
the companies post their tions companies had lob- slow down or block access ple see and do online. tomorrow just as it always
policies online. Broadband bied hard to overturn the to services they don’t like. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT has.” Like other broad-
providers insist they won’t rules, contending they They could also charge In the near term, experts band providers, AT&T said
do anything that harms the are heavy-handed and higher fees to rivals and believe that providers will it won’t block websites
“internet experience” for discourage investment make them pay up for stay on their best behavior. and won’t throttle or de-
consumers. in broadband networks. higher transmission speeds, In part, that’s because in- grade online traffic based
WHAT HAPPENED “What is the FCC doing or set up “fast lanes” for evitable legal challenges on content. But such things
On Thursday, the FCC re- today?” asked FCC chair- their preferred services — to the FCC’s action will have happened before.
pealed Obama-era “net man Ajit Pai, a Republi- in turn, relegating every- keep the spotlight on them. The Associated Press in
neutrality” rules, junking the can. “Quite simply, we are one else to “slow lanes.” Public-interest groups such 2007 found Comcast was
longtime principle that all restoring the light-touch Those possibilities have as Free Press and Pub- blocking some file-sharing
framework that has gov- stirred fears among con- lic Knowledge have said services. q

Ng aims to bring AI ‘electricity’ to manufacturing

By The Associated Press Landing.AI’s first strategic turing. That’s just a fact of
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — partner is Foxconn, the Tai- life,” Ng told reporters at a
The artificial intelligence wanese manufacturing gi- briefing on Tuesday in San
researcher who called AI ant that helps Apple build Francisco. His small team
the new electricity is now iPhones. The company is of about two dozen em-
trying to make sure every helping implement a sys- ployees based in Palo Alto,
company is plugged in. tem to spot defects, such California, hopes to accel-
Stanford professor Andrew as tiny particles or scratch- erate companies’ ability to
Ng (ING), one of the lead- es on camera lens units. take advantage of the lat-
ing figures in AI , is launch- Currently, thousands of est techniques in machine
ing a startup called Land- people work to manually learning.
ing.AI (LANDing-dot-A-I). Its inspect such parts. Ng says Ng, who led AI teams at
aim initially is to help man- the AI-powered system search giants Google and
ufacturing companies use can work 24 hours a day, Baidu and launched online
computer algorithms to cut seven days a week, and learning platform Cours-
In this Friday, July 14, 2017, file photo, computer scientist costs, improve quality con- be more accurate than era, did not announce
Andrew Ng poses at his office in Palo Alto, Calif. trol, remove supply-chain people. funding details.q
Associated Press bottlenecks, and more. “AI will transform manufac-