Texas is Doing Its Part — Now It’s Congress’s Turn

The month of August 2017 will not be remembered in many people’s minds as a great one for the United States. We edged too close to conflict with a madman in North Korea. Marches over monuments in Virginia devolved into murder. Ugly debates about what America used to be made too many people ask themselves what this country has become.

It’s hard to believe, then, that a devastating hurricane at the end of the month, a once-in-a-generation catastrophe in Texas, could be a catalyst to remind us who we are and what America remains today, but it has. The images coming out of Hurricane Harvey’s path have been heartbreaking and inspiring — every day Americans have transformed themselves into helpers and heroes, rescuing strangers stranded in the rushing, suffocating floods.

There was Joshua Lincoln and the Cajun Navy, mostly survivors of Hurricane Katrina, who left their jobs and brought their boats to Houston to pluck people out of the rising flood waters. Josh was asked on CNN why he was doing it, pulling bodies from the water, and he explained, “In my life, I've been through a lot of storms, too.”

More volunteers came on jet skis and surf boards, paddles boards and fan boats, a makeshift armada going door to door, helping to rescue anyone that first responders did not know about or simply couldn’t get to.The first responders had their own miraculous rescues and stories, too

There were the FEMA staff in cargo trucks who rescued more than 80 senior citizens, their medical charts tied around their necks in plastic bags. There was the image of the sheriff who had fallen asleep sitting up straight, still in his waders, after a 20-hour day of responding to calls for help.

Businesses did what they could, as well. The Houston Chronicle made its website free, on what must have been its highest days of traffic in history, to give people access to lifesaving evacuation instructions. Anheuser Busch stopped brewing beer in order to fill their cans with water to send to storm victims instead.

Working together

“No one Is asking whether you’re a Democrat or Republican,” Mayor Sylvester Turner of Houston told CNN. “No one is asking whether you are here legally or illegally. If you are in need in this city, we band together, work together, to get you the assistance you need to get you back on your feet.”

It has all reminded me of something Secretary of Defense James Mattis said to a group of young American soldiers and sailors last week during his trip to the Middle East. “We as Americans have two powers — the power of inspiration and the power of intimidation,” he said. He told them that the military is the power of intimidation, but that the spirit of the country itself holds the power to inspire others all across the globe.

“You just hold the line until our country gets back to respecting each other and showing it,” he told them. “Take care of each other, OK?”

If anyone knows what power looks like, it’s a retired four-star general who goes by “Mad Dog.” I have to think Mad Dog saw the power of inspiration in Houston this week.

It also has to be said that President Trump, not exactly known as a voice of calm reassurance in a crisis, has done what we need a president to do in these moments. He has let Houston know that it is not alone and will not be forgotten. Even Vice President Mike Pence, who once argued against a massive aide package for Hurricane Katrina recovery because it was a “catastrophe of debt,” assured the state of Texas that between the administration and Congress, “We’ll have the resources that we need” to help the region recover.

Stepping up

And that brings the baton in this relay to Congress. In a month that was already heavy with must-do items on the calendar—raising the debt ceiling, avoiding a government shutdown, reauthorizing CHIP, extending flood insurance, and funding nearly the entire federal government—the need now comes for Congress to pass a disaster funding bill.

It should be the easiest thing Congress does this year. But these days in Washington, the House and Senate seem to make even the easy things look hard. Will there be calls for spending offsets? Riders on the bill?

We’re already hearing the charges of hypocrisy against Sen. Ted Cruz and some of his fellow Texans, who are asking for quick relief now but were not so eager to give it when it was New York and New Jersey in the path of Hurricane Sandy and Cruz and others voted no. In Houston, locals are wondering if federal help will come quickly, or whether there will be “payback”  for Cruz’s votes when others needed help.

When Congress returns to Washington next week, they will have a chance to act quickly to make sure that Texans and Louisianans have the resources they need to at least begin to put their lives back together.

But is it too much to also hope that Congress follows the examples of the everyday heroes we saw this week and change the way they are doing business in the nation’s capital? Can they for once rise above the bad habits, the ugly precedents, and the paralyzing dysfunction and finally deserve the people they lead?

Work together, Congress. Solve these problems. Be at least as good as the people you represent. Inspire us.

'This is our baby': Couple charged in connection with pregnant woman’s murder, taking her child

The girl was born weeks early, in what Fargo Police Chief David Todd had described as a “cruel and vicious act of depravity” committed against the mother and her child. LaFontaine-Greywind is dead; her body was spotted this weekend in a river in another state, hanging on a log, heavily wrapped in plastic and duct tape, police said. Her baby was not with her; instead, the child was found in her neighbors’ apartment.

Court documents shed some light into what authorities believe happened inside the Fargo, N.D., apartment, where relatives say LaFontaine-Greywind went the afternoon of Aug. 19 and never returned home. The two tenants, charged in connection with the young woman’s death, have since given conflicting statements to investigators.

William Hoehn, 32, said he came home from work at about 2:30 p.m. that day to find Brooke Crews, 38, cleaning blood in their bathroom. Then, she showed him an infant girl.

“This is our baby, this is our family,” she told him, according to a probable cause affidavit.

About an hour earlier, LaFontaine-Greywind had told her family she was going to her neighbors’ apartment to help with a sewing project, police said. She left behind her wallet and a newly ordered pizza, her mother told the Duluth News Tribune. Her family later reported her missing.

In his interview with police, Hoehn admitted he threw away garbage bags carrying bloody towels and his bloody shoes into a dumpster somewhere in the neighboring city, the affidavit said.

Crews, meanwhile, told investigators LaFontaine-Greywind came over to the apartment, and she taught the young woman how to break her own water to induce child birth, the affidavit said. Crews then claimed LaFontaine-Greywind left the apartment, returned in the early morning hours of Aug. 21, and handed Crews a newborn. By then, police and LaFontaine-Greywind’s family had been looking for her for two days.

More than three dozen law enforcement officers and K-9 dogs looked for LaFontaine-Greywind. Investigators and volunteers scoured the neighborhood and the nearby Red River.

Officers also searched Crews and Hoehn’s apartment multiple times. After searching the apartment for the fourth time last Thursday, authorities discovered a newborn girl, alive and in good health, police said. She was taken to a hospital and was kept in the custody of Cass County Social Services.

LaFontaine-Greywind’s body was found a few days later, last Sunday, when kayakers spotted her body in a river a few miles across the border in Moorhead, Minn. Todd, the police chief, said investigators are also looking into a nearby abandoned farmstead, where searchers found suspicious items suggesting the area could be a crime scene.

Todd did not elaborate on what led investigators to search the apartment again, only saying they “were able to develop a criminal nexus” that justified a search warrant. He said it’s possible the infant was not in the apartment when investigators searched it the first three times.

Crews and Hoehn told investigators the baby was LaFontaine-Greywind’s daughter, Todd said. Court records also state Crews admitted taking advantage of her neighbor in an attempt to keep the child as her own.

But that was the extent of their cooperation with investigators, Todd said.

“Both Hoehn and Crews invoked their right to counsel and refuse to answer any more questions,” he said at a news conference last week.

Hoehn and Crews have each been charged with conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping and giving false information to law enforcement. They were arraigned earlier this week. The Washington Post was unable to reach Crews’s court-appointed attorney this week. Hoehn’s lawyer did not return a call.

Authorities have released little information about how and where LaFontaine-Greywind died, other than describing her death as the result of “homicidal violence.”

Police also have yet to say how the baby was delivered and have so far declined to confirm media questions about whether this was a case of fetal abduction, in which a pregnant woman is forced to give birth or a baby is forcibly removed from the mother’s womb.

The baby will remain with county social services pending a DNA test to confirm whether she is LaFontaine-Greywind’s child.

LaFontaine-Greywind, a certified nursing assistant, was part of a Native American tribe in North Dakota. She and her boyfriend, Ashton Matheny, were supposed to move into their new apartment this week, the Duluth News Tribune reported.

Matheny said DNA samples have been taken from him to confirm the baby is his, but testing would take days.

“All I wanted was a life with Savanna and my baby,” Matheny told ABC affiliate WDAY. “But they took it from me. My world’s gone, man. They took my world from me.”

US hands out first contracts for border wall prototypes

Four companies have been chosen to build prototypes for Donald Trump's planned border wall, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said.

The four concrete prototypes will be 30ft (9m) long and up to 30ft tall, and will be built in the coming months.

Officials will then spend up to two months testing the walls for tampering and penetration resistance using small hand tools, CBP said.

The four contracts are worth up to $500,000 (£387,000) each.

A continuous wall across the entire southern US border was a key promise in President Trump's election campaign.

The prototypes "will help us refine the design standards" of the eventual wall, acting CBP deputy commissioner Ronald Vitiello said.

"Testing will look at things like the aesthetics of it, how penetrable they are, how resistant they are to tampering, and scaling or anti-claim features."

But he said the officials would stick to small hand tools rather than testing "ballistic kind of things".

The walls will also need to feature cable conduits and other design features for sensors and cameras.

Once the order to start building is given in the next few weeks, the prototypes are expected to be finished within 30 days.

The four companies to which the contracts were awarded are:

• Caddell Construction, in Montgomery, Alabama

• Fisher Industries in Tempe, Arizona

• Texas Sterling Construction in Houston, Texas

• WG Yates & Sons Construction in Philadelphia, Mississippi

Mr Vitiello said he did not know if any of the firms had had prior experience in border wall construction.

More than 200 companies are believed to have submitted designs for the proposed border wall.

Four more contracts for prototypes made from materials other than concrete will be announced next week.

Science funding: Will 'picking winners' work?

An ambitious Conservative minister has set out a strategy to turn the UK's scientific expertise into new products and services that will generate jobs and wealth for the economy.

That was in 1983. The minister was Kenneth Clarke, who launched the £350m Alvey programme. It was designed to propel Britain to the forefront of advanced computing.

But the policy of government subsidies for the research and development of favoured companies - known as "picking winners" - did not fit in with Margaret Thatcher's policy of introducing free market principles to the economy. Five years after its inception, the government pulled the plug on the Alvey programme.

Thirty five years on, another Mr Clark, the Business Secretary, Greg Clark, announced £140m to support collaboration between industry and academia in the so-called life sciences sector, which develops innovative new medical treatments.

The money was announced earlier this year - but details were revealed on Wednesday, to great fanfare.

"The life sciences industry is the most successful and most important we know," Mr Clark told reporters.

"Demand for this is going to increase in the years ahead, so what we are doing is to support a collaboration to get breakthroughs for patients and also create jobs."

So why is another Conservative government reviving a policy of subsidising industrial research when an earlier one junked it in the 1980s?

It is because some high-tech companies and leading scientists have persuaded the Treasury and Downing Street that the policy was not wrong back then and should be given another go now.

As a result, the prime minister and the chancellor announced an industrial strategy late last year.

It is to be driven by UK research strengths, and they gave an extra £4.7bn pounds to spend on science over the next four years.

The life sciences strategy is the first announcement of many that will aim to harness Britain's scientific strengths to benefit the economy.

And while the word "intervention" does not sit easily with some Conservative politicians, the policy is being sold as part of the solution in the government's Brexit narrative.

The formerly Remain-supporting Jeremy Hunt said: "When we leave the EU, we will have a lot of money that we currently didn't have control over.

"What we are saying today is the life science industries [have a] very big opportunity.

"The government is backing those businesses that want Britain to be right at the very top of the pile to make those innovations."

Until recently, the Treasury has been suspicious of the way the nine separate scientific funding bodies spend public money.

The process involves experts in the field deciding allocations based purely on scientific excellence.

But the lack of coordination or strategic oversight made civil servants and ministers nervous of giving the funding bodies any serious money.

That began to change in 2015, when Nobel Prize winner and director of the Crick Institute, Prof Sir Paul Nurse, persuaded the then Chancellor, George Osborne, that an umbrella body should be set up to both coordinate science funders and to consider how the research they were supporting fitted in with economic opportunities.

The Treasury loved the idea. It was a marked departure from the autonomy the funding bodies had enjoyed in the past.

But Sir Paul said proper oversight and coordination was the only way the UK could maintain its research excellence.

Government accepted Sir Paul's idea and set up the umbrella body, called United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI).

With it came the extra £4.7bn for science, with the possibility of more, maybe even much more, to come if the system delivers benefits to the economy.

"It is a massive sum that we haven't seen for decades that has been added to the science budget. So, I think we have everything to play for," says Sir Paul.

There is concern though that ministers will interfere, directing funding away from the best research and toward those areas that are socially, economically and politically important to them.

Sir Paul believes such concerns to be "scaremongering".

"For science to play its proper role in promoting benefit for society it's very important to invest in [pure] research," he says, "but also to think about how those fundamental discoveries may be translated into useful objectives that will bring advances for society."

Thirty five years on from the launch of the Alvey programme, do we have another Conservative government that is not afraid of picking winners?

The author of the new life sciences strategy document, Prof Sir John Bell, of Oxford University says he hopes so.

"If you look around the world, it's important to think why you're doing an industrial strategy, and I think it's to try to identify sectors where you are likely to see very substantial economic expansion," he says.

"Everyone thinks that the US is a completely capitalist free-market enterprise, but the truth is they pour billions of pounds into subsidising their life sciences industry in a whole variety of different ways."

How Apple Plans to Change the Way You Use the Next iPhone

Apple Inc. plans to transform the way people use its next high-end iPhone by eliminating the concept of a home button and making other adjustments to a flagship device that’s becoming almost all screen, according to images of the new device viewed by Bloomberg News and people familiar with the gadget. 

The home button is the key to the iPhone and the design hasn’t changed much since it launched in 2007. Currently, users click it to return to the starting app grid that greets them multiple times a day. They hold it down to talk to the Siri digital assistant. Double click it and you get multitasking where different apps screens can be swiped through like a carousel.

Apple is preparing three new iPhones for debut next month. One of the models, a new high-end device, packs in enough changes to make it one of the biggest iPhone updates in the product’s decade-long history. With a crisper screen that takes up nearly the entire front, Apple has tested the complete removal of the home button – even a digital one -- in favor of new gesture controls for tasks like going to the main app grid and opening multitasking, according to the people and the images. 

In the new, high-end iPhone, Apple also plans a taller screen with rounded corners, a cutout at the top of the display for the camera and sensors, and new antenna locations, the images show. Apple often tests different designs and the details may differ from what the company ultimately releases. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

Across the bottom of the screen there’s a thin, software bar in lieu of the home button. A user can drag it up to the middle of the screen to open the phone. When inside an app, a similar gesture starts multitasking. From here, users can continue to flick upwards to close the app and go back to the home screen. An animation in testing sucks the app back into its icon. The multitasking interface has been redesigned to appear like a series of standalone cards that can be swiped through, versus the stack of cards on current iPhones, the images show. 

The new model’s overall size will be similar to that of the iPhone 7, but it will include an OLED screen that is slightly larger than the one on the iPhone 7 Plus (5.5-inches), people familiar with the product have told Bloomberg News. The phone will have symmetrical, slim bezels around the entirety of the screen, meaning the area below the screen that used to house the home button and the area above the screen for the earpiece have been removed. The earpiece, facial recognition sensor, and selfie camera are instead present in a cutout, or “notch,” at the top of the screen, the images show. 

The new screen is rounded on the corners, while current iPhone screens have square corners. The power button on the right side of phone is longer so it is easier to press while holding the device in one hand, according to the images and the people. 

The screen is also noticeably taller than the iPhone 7 Plus’s screen, meaning it could show more of a web page or additional text messages, the people said. The phone will still have six vertical rows of apps, showing 24 icons on each page, excluding the dock, a grey bar at the bottom that houses commonly used apps. The dock is redesigned with a new interface similar to the one on the iPad version of iOS 11, the images show.  

Apple has opted to not hide the notch area at the top of the screen, showing a definitive cutout at the top of apps with non-black backgrounds. The cutout is noticeable during app usage in the middle of the very top of the screen, where the status bar (the area that shows cellular reception, the time, and battery life) would normally be placed, according to the images. Instead, the status bar will be split into left and right sides, which some Apple employees call “ears” internally. In images of recent test devices, the left side shows the time while the area on the right side of the notch displays cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity and remaining battery life. Because of limited space, the status bar could change based on the task at hand, according to a person familiar with the testing.

The color reproduction of the OLED screen means that when the display shows black, it blends in nearly perfectly with the phone’s notch and thin black edges on the front, presenting a seamless look, according to the people familiar with the product. The screen itself, however, is flat like current and past iPhones and lacks the fully curved displays of the latest Samsung phones.

Apple also plans to include a stainless steel band around the phone which the glass curves into. The steel band has small antenna cuts on the corners like past iPhones to improve reception, the images show. Apple previously used steel sides and a glass casing for the iPhone 4 and 4s before moving to a mostly metal back and sides with the iPhone 5. The iPhone 6 line and newer have had completely metal backs. 

Apple also is planning two additional new iPhone models that use faster processors, but include the same screens as the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. The new devices will debut at Apple’s September launch event alongside upgraded Apple TV and Apple Watch models.

Kim Dotcom demos micro-payment service to help stop piracy

Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom has demonstrated a new micro-payments service that is designed to let people charge small amounts of money for any content they create.

Bitcache will let users make and receive Bitcoin payments.

Mr Dotcom is currently fighting extradition to the US to stand trial for copyright infringement and fraud.

He said the platform will reduce online piracy by letting people pay for content from anywhere in the world.

Micro-payments

The idea behind Bitcache is to turn any file uploaded to the platform into its own "shop".

Creators can upload any type of content to the service - such as a video, a song, images or computer code - and then choose how much money they want to charge.

That can be anything from $1 (£0.77) up. Bitcache will help to distribute the file across file storage websites, torrent sites and community file-sharing sites.

Even if the file is downloaded multiple times, it is encrypted and cannot be opened unless the user pays the required amount of money.

The service, which will eventually include a web browser extension and a mobile app, would also let media organisations, YouTube vloggers and bloggers to accept micro-payments from viewers.

So for example, when reading an online newspaper, watching videos on YouTube or reading a recipe, users could press a button on the page and pay a few cents for each piece of content they consume, using their Bitcache wallet.

Crowdfunded investment

Over $1m was raised on crowdfunding investment platform Bank To The Future in October 2016 to fund Bitcache, which is still under development.

The demo went live on Tuesday, and 185,000 requests were received asking for access, but only 10,000 invitations were sent out.

The service is set to launch in mid-to-late 2018.

The Bitcache project has so far received a lot of support from users on Twitter.

Mr Dotcom, the founder of content-sharing website Megaupload, said his technology will enable copyright holders to gain more revenue by making their content accessible in many countries.

He thinks this would act as a deterrent to piracy for people who are willing to pay for content, but are currently unable to get it from firms such as Netflix or Apple.

Using bitcoin would let people make anonymous payments quickly, but the technology is not geared up to make millions of payments a minute.

Bitcache was built to let this many transactions be performed at speed.

"Content often becomes available in one place in the world, and when people are willing to pay, and they try to, they get the message that the content is not available in their country," Mr Dotcom told the BBC.

"I think the solution to the piracy problem is to offer content globally at the same time, at the same price.

"There will always be people who will pirate content - you can't stop that, but you can get to all the people who have the money to pay for content, but have no way to access it. That's about $10bn worth of revenue that is just being left on the side."

Ernesto van der Sar, editor of piracy news website TorrentFreak, told the BBC:

"I think Bitcache could help independent artists to spread their work to a larger audience and get paid for it at the same time. The more exposure the better.

"That said, I don't think that most people who currently pirate content are suddenly going to pay. They will look for free alternatives instead. These are often readily available, especially for mainstream entertainment."

Takedown requests

Mr Dotcom has been fighting extradition to the US since 2012, when his mansion was raided and his assets were seized.

The US Department of Justice has said Mr Dotcom and his associates enabled copyright infringement by letting users store pirated files in free cloud lockers.

Users posted links to the pirated content for others to download for free, but Megaupload would not close down lockers containing infringing content.

Mr Dotcom has long argued that he did not aid piracy because he had a takedown system that enabled copyright holders to delete links to pirated files, and without the link, a user could not reach the file.

To prevent such a situation occurring with Bitcache, the technology lets copyright holders to take control over files made of their content.

"If someone pirates Game of Thrones and charges money for it, the content provider can find the link, report it to the system and then claim that content," said Dotcom.

"They can change the price point so the user will have to pay the real price, and no matter where the [file] is located online, the content provider will now receive all the payments."

Of course, this will not work on pirated files that have been uploaded via torrents, but he believes it will give content providers back control over their content, if they partner with his platform.

"The next generation of smartphones will transfer files in seconds," said Mr Dotcom.

"If content holders want to have any chance to combat piracy in a world that makes it increasingly easy to pirate, the best way is to turn every file into a shop.

"This is truly new - something like this doesn't exist yet."

India doctor fight during operation goes viral

Two doctors in India were temporarily released from their duties after a video surfaced of them arguing while standing over a pregnant patient during an operation, their hospital says.

Footage of the incident, at the Umaid hospital in north Rajasthan, has been widely circulated, causing outrage.

A senior hospital official told the BBC that the woman and her baby are fine.

The source of the leaked video is unclear, but the official confirmed that it came from within the hospital.

Trading insults

After the video emerged online, many media reports claimed the woman pictured on the operating table gave birth to a baby who did not survive.

But Dr Ranjana Desai, the superintendent of Umaid Hospital in Jodhpur, said this was inaccurate. "By the time I saw the video and conducted an internal inquiry, the media had already reported that this baby had died," she told the BBC.

A baby did die, but not the one the media reported, she said. A few feet away, on another operating table within the same room, a different woman gave birth to a stillborn baby. "These two incidents are not linked," Dr Desai told the BBC.

In the video, which has been shared widely across media and online, the two doctors can be heard slinging insults at each other in Hindi before arguing over whether the patient had eaten before surgery.

Dr Desai identified the two doctors as Dr Ashok Nanival and Dr Mathura Lal Tak.

She said that the two doctors were not formally suspended, but had been released from their duties at the hospital while they proceed with an internal inquiry. Additionally, the hospital is in the process of collecting statements from staff to find out who shot the video and how it came to be leaked.

The Rajasthan High Court has ordered the hospital to submit a report, while they proceed with a separate state level investigation into the incident.

TEDGlobal: Three words that give people an address

Groceries, post and even pizza are now being delivered to remote parts of the world, previously cut off because they lacked an address.

In Mongolia, people can apply for a bank account using three words to identify where they live.

The system divides the world into 57 trillion 3m sq (9.8ft sq) squares, each with a unique three-word address.

What3words was at Arusha, Tanzania's TEDGlobal conference, updating its effort to give "everyone an address".

"Without an address you might as well not exist," said the UK start-up's co-founder Chris Sheldrick.

"So many services that people take for granted such as applying for a bank account or a utility require an address. For some it is either impossible or a huge struggle to get these things."

A charity in Durban, South Africa, is using the system to provide three-word addresses for 11,000 pregnant women.

"They would previously call an ambulance and it would take hours to find them. Now they can just call and give the three-word address," said Mr Sheldrick.

Domino's Pizza is using the system to deliver pizzas in the Caribbean island of St Maarten.

What3words has just signed a deal with Khan bank in Mongolia that will allow residents to put the three words that make up their location on a form when applying for a bank account.

"The safe and secure delivery of credit cards to the hands of our customers is critical for us," said Javkhlan Turmunkh, deputy chief executive of Khan Bank.

"Considering the fact that addresses supplied by our customers are often not recognised by mapping platforms, we have chosen to use three-word addresses besides conventional postal addresses in our card delivery. This means that no matter where our customers live, we will be able to deliver cards safely."

Earlier this month, What3Words also signed a deal with the Nigerian postal system.

Nigeria is one of Africa's biggest economies, with more than 180 million people - but only 20% of its inhabitants are able to receive their mail at home. The Nigerian Post and Telecommunications Service has set a target to increase this to more than 70% within the next two years.

The system has already been adopted by postal services in Mongolia, Ivory Coast, Tonga and the Solomon Islands.

Simple solution

Chris Sheldrick began the firm in 2013, following a 10-year career as a musician.

"Every day we would go somewhere new and people always got lost. I tried getting my band to use GPS co-ordinates but they were resistant or typed the co-ordinates wrong.

"I started chatting with a friend who was a mathematician about how we could come up with something that was simple."

They came up with a mathematical formula and list of 40,000 words. Initially in English, the system has now been translated into 14 languages.

What3Words has, however, faced criticism, not least for the restrictions it places on how its data is used and the fact it charges companies to incorporate its service into other products.

And despite the progress outlined at TEDGlobal, the platform has a long way to go before it could be described as being mainstream.

Edward Anderson, chief technologist at the World Bank in Tanzania has looked into customising the system to make it easier to deliver textbooks to secondary schools and for identifying broken water pumps around the country.

"It is a neat idea but it is not immediately obvious what the problem is. In order to look up the three words you need to have GPS co-ordinates so it is not about figuring out where you are but more about telling other people where you are," he said.

He said that there could be a market for the system for voice-activated services.

"You could speak your address to self-driving cars or to make drone deliveries."

First cancer 'living drug' gets go-ahead

The US has approved the first treatment to redesign a patient's own immune system so it attacks cancer.

The regulator - the US Food and Drug Administration - said its decision was a "historic" moment and medicine was now "entering a new frontier".

The company Novartis is charging $475,000 (£367,000) for the "living drug" therapy, which leaves 83% of people free of a type of blood cancer.

Doctors in the UK said the announcement was an exciting step forward.

The living drug is tailor-made to each patient, unlike conventional therapies such as surgery or chemotherapy.

It is called CAR-T and is made by extracting white blood cells from the patient's blood.

The cells are then genetically reprogrammed to seek out and kill cancer.

The cancer-killers are then put back inside the patient and once they find their target they multiply.

'Enormously exciting'

Dr Scott Gottlieb, from the FDA, said: "We're entering a new frontier in medical innovation with the ability to reprogram a patient's own cells to attack a deadly cancer.

"New technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold out the potential to transform medicine and create an inflection point in our ability to treat and even cure many intractable illnesses."

The therapy, which will be marketed as Kymriah, works against acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

Most patients respond to normal therapy and Kymriah has been approved for when those treatments fail.

Dr Stephan Grupp, who treated the first child with CAR-T at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said the new approach was "enormously exciting".

"We've never seen anything like this before," he added.

That first patient had been near to death, but has now been cancer-free for more than five years.

Out of 63 patients treated with CAR-T therapy, 83% were in complete remission within three months and long-term data is still being collected.

However, the therapy is not without risks.

It can cause potentially life-threatening cytokine release syndrome from the rapid proliferation of the CAR-T cells in the body. This can be controlled with drugs.

New era

But the potential of CAR-T technology goes beyond one type of cancer.

Dr David Maloney, medical director of cellular immunotherapy at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said the FDA's decision was a "milestone".

He added: "We believe this is just the first of what will soon be many new immunotherapy-based treatments for a variety of cancers.

CAR-T technology has shown most promise against different blood-based cancers.

However, it has struggled against "solid tumours" such as lung cancer or melanoma.

Dr Prakash Satwani, a paediatric oncologist at Columbia University Medical, said: "The results haven't been that great when you compare it with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, but I'm sure the technology will get better in the near future."

Boosting the immune system is already a cornerstone of modern cancer treatment.

A range of drugs that "take the brakes off" the immune system to allow it to attack cancer more freely have already been adopted around the world.

CAR-T technology, which goes a step further and redesigns the immune system, is at a much earlier stage.

Prof Peter Johnson, the chief clinician at the charity Cancer Research UK, said: "The first genetically modified cell therapy to be approved by the FDA is an exciting step forward.

"We still have a lot to learn about how to use it safely and who might benefit from it, so it is important to recognise this is just a first step."