SHANNON, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 18, 2023--

A police spy camera van which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to detect drivers using their mobile phones at the wheel and not wearing seat belts has led to nearly 500 driving offences being identified. Hampshire and Thames Valley Police forces targeted commercial vehicles in a week-long operation on the A34 and the A303 using the Sensor test vehicle with the Acusensus “Heads-up” solution provided by infrastructure consultancy AECOM. The AI-equipped camera van can detect drivers using their phones using two cameras. The first is set at a shallow angle to identify a mobile phone close to the driver’s ear as well as spot whether a seat belt is being worn, and the second has a steep view to see if a mobile phone is being held down in front for texting. Once the offences are identified by the AI system, the results are double-checked by at least two humans before being considered for prosecution. Simon Gomer, manager of the police forces’ Safer Roads Unit, said: “These are very exciting times and this has been a great opportunity for both forces to utilise the latest in AI technology. “But the results we’ve had from just one week sadly show how prolific these offences are. We will continue to spread the message that distracted driving kills, these offences will be punished and social habits need to change.” Dr Jamie Uff, of AECOM, said: “Despite the often-reported dangers of distracted driving and failing to wear seat belts, the numbers of people killed or seriously injured as a result of these behaviours remain high. “The technology AECOM is deploying makes detection straightforward and is providing valuable insight to the police and policy makers on the current level of road user behaviour. We are really keen for the use of this technology to be expanded to raise awareness and improve road safety for everyone.” The Heads-up van identified 86 drivers suspected of using a phone and 273 motorists or passengers suspected of not wearing a seat belt, with a further 132 mechanical offences identified. Five arrests were also made for offences such as drug-driving and disqualified driving. Police Sergeant Paul Diamond, of the Commercial Vehicle Unit, said: “It is always disappointing to see the level of danger some people bring to themselves and other motorists, but with dedicated operations like this we can combat the threat and remove the worst offenders.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

Elon Musk’s top outside attorney sent Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella a letter Thursday, saying Microsoft

The decision strikes down decades-old policies viewed as a measure to increase diversity.

Fans really admired Page Spiranac for her knowledgeable insights in her new YouTube video

Scientists have grown human kidneys in pigs, for the very first time. Researchers at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wuyi University created human-pig chimeric embryos containing a combination of human and pig cells. When they transferred into 13 surrogate pig mothers, they developed kidneys that contained mostly human cells at a rate of 50 to 60 per cent, giving hope for potential transplants in the future. “Rat organs have been produced in mice, and mouse organs have been produced in rats, but previous attempts to grow human organs in pigs have not succeeded,” said the senior author Liangxue Lai. “Our approach improves the integration of human cells into recipient tissues and allows us to grow human organs in pigs.” The kidneys were not entirely human as they included vasculature and nerves made mostly from pig cells, meaning they could not be used for transplantation in their current form, but it is still a pretty impressive step. And apart from the kidneys, the embryos were dominated by pig cells, with very few human cells in the brain or central nervous system. Making brains using human and pig cells is very controversial for ethical reasons, so there are tight regulations for this kind of research. Meanwhile, pig cells tend to outcompete human cells during development, so previous experiments have created embryos that are almost entirely pig. The latest work, published in Cell Stem Cell, overcame this by genetically engineering a single-cell pig embryo so that it lacked two genes needed for kidney development. This created a gap within the embryo that could be filled by human cells. “We found that if you create a niche in the pig embryo, then the human cells naturally go into these spaces,” said Prof Zhen Dai of Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, another senior author. The scientists said that being able to incubate a fully human kidney inside a pig would be likely to take many years. “We would probably need to engineer the pigs in a much more complex way and that also brings some additional challenges,” said Miguel Esteban, also of the Guangzhou institute and a senior author. A central challenge would be to allow human nerves and vasculature to develop within the target organ without nerve cells developing in the central nervous system that could lead to a humanised brain. “Even theoretically it’s not clear how you’d do that,” said Ilic. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

European Union officials on Tuesday called on large social media platforms to step up their enforcement against online mis- and disinformation, particularly about the war in Ukraine.

Google’s Bard artificial intelligence chatbot will answer a question about how many pandas live in zoos quickly, and

By David Shepardson WASHINGTON The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will resolve its two-year investigation into Tesla

By Hyunsu Yim and Soo-hyang Choi SEOUL South Korea said on Friday Japan's plan to discharge treated radioactive

After a wildly successful first few days, Threads popularity has waned in the weeks since Meta launched its challenge to Twitter, which...

July is set to become the world’s hottest month on record, as fossil fuel emissions drive climate change