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News accounts of Gov. John Hickenlooper's recent decision to accelerate renewable energy goals for Colorado and join the "U.S. Climate Alliance," aligning the state with international commitments President Obama made as part of his Paris climate pact, frequently missed the mark on a number of key points. So let me provide context that was missing from much of the coverage I saw.

One major Colorado newspaper, for instance, reported that Colorado was joining a "growing number of states" that were "committed to meeting or exceeding greenhouse gas reduction targets set in the international Paris climate treaty that President Donald Trump rejects." But that's wrong on three counts quite an achievement for a single sentence.

The president is not jettisoning legally binding commitments because the Paris accord is not a treaty. No matter what name is attached to it "accord," "agreement," "pact" or "deal" it has no constitutional, legal or political standing comparable to a treaty because it was never submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification.

Why didn't President Obama seek Senate approval? Because, just like the Iran nuclear agreement he negotiated, his Paris pact had no hope of getting the two-thirds vote required for treaty ratification. The Constitution requires U.S. Senate ratification because the Founders did not trust executive branch politicians to unilaterally commit the American people to international agreements. Nothing in the Constitution allows states or governors to engage in foreign policy freelancing. The governor thus has no authority to make a commitment to an international agreement of any kind.

And how far is the governor willing to go in order to comply with the terms of a nullified non-treaty that a former president approved in irregular and unconstitutional fashion? Is he also going to monitor compliance by China and other pact participants, and attempt to impose sanctions if they fall short of benchmarks or get caught cheating? And what about the $3 billion in payments Obama committed the U.S. to make as part of the "deal"? Will Colorado and other "Climate Alliance" members be stepping up to make good on that commitment, using tax dollars?

Clearly, the governor has given too little thought to the legal, constitutional and practical implications of this proposal.

It's also wrong to suggest Colorado is one of a growing number of states joining an alliance that opposes the president on the Paris accord. Since June 8, when 13 states had joined, only one additional state joined Colorado. Moreover, not one additional state has joined since the Governor's July 11 statement. That rate of progress would make a snail envious.

It would be more accurate to say that 14 governors have joined that group, not 14 states, given the undemocratic way this "movement" has evolved. Like Obama with his pen and phone, Hickenlooper wants to commit the entire state to this without involving the people's representatives in the lawmaking branch of government. But there can be no revision for acceleration of Colorado's established greenhouse gas emission goals without the involvement of the state Legislature. I don't believe the governor can commit Colorado to the goals of the Paris accord while acting alone.

Hickenlooper repeatedly said he believes these measures will have little to no adverse impact on taxpayers, utility ratepayers or the state's business climate. He promises big benefits on all fronts all winners and no losers. All that's missing from this picture is a prospect of puppies and cotton candy for all.

The governor's attempt to unilaterally commit Colorado to the goals of the Paris pact isn't therefore just questionable, impractical and unwise. If he attempts to implement the plan without legislative approval, it is also unconstitutional, which could open the door to costly litigation that will forever taint whatever climate "legacy" he hopes this gambit will achieve.

The good news is that there is still time for the governor, who generally has shown a deliberative and collaborative approach on such central policy questions, to climb down from his high horse and reconsider this embarrassing misstep.

Kevin Grantham is president of the Colorado Senate and represents Senate District 2.

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Guest opinion: Governor's climate gambit reeks of Obama-style overreach - Glenwood Springs Post Independent

By Joseph Pisani

Associated Press

NEW YORK | A savings program put into place under President Barack Obama and designed to get more people to put away money for retirement is being killed by the Treasury Department, which said it is too costly to maintain.

The program, called myRA, was launched about two years ago for those who dont have access to a 401(k) or another retirement plan from their employer. The myRA accounts had no fees or minimum deposit, and were meant to appeal to low-income workers.

Unfortunately, there has been very little demand for the program, said U.S. Treasurer Jovita Carranza, in a release Friday. The cost to taxpayers cannot be justified by the assets in the program.

The Treasury Department said myRA savers had put away about $34 million since late 2015, and that the program cost taxpayers nearly $70 million. It would have cost $10 million a year to continue the program, the Treasury said.

About 30,000 accounts were opened, and 10,000 have no money in them. The average account holder has about $1,500 in their account, the Treasury said.

Participants received emails Friday requesting a stop on automatic deposits made to any myRA account.

The Treasury advised those with an account to transfer money to another retirement account, known as a Roth IRA, at a bank or brokerage firm. The accounts can also be cashed out, but those that do may have to pay tax penalties.

The Treasury said it doesnt have a deadline yet for when the accounts need to be closed. Accounts with a zero balance will be closed starting in September.

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Obama-era retirement savings program for workers gets the ax - Florida Times-Union

Donald Trump is a terrible president, and one of his own worst criticsat least, according to his own analysis of former President Barack Obama.

If Obama-era Donald Trump could offer his criticisms on the current White House administration, beleaguered by internal disorder and a stalled agenda, via some sort of Twitter time machinethey probably wouldnt sound toopretty.

That historic version of thecommander-in-chief would decry his own excuses for being unable to pass any major legislation in six months, saying its "BS since he had full control"in both Houses; just as he said about Obama.

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If somehow possible, 2012-Trump would slam 2017-Trump for his series of controversies following the G7 summit in Sicily, when he pulled out of the Paris Climate Accordand the G20 in Germany, when he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and discussed creating a cybersecurity group after his nation meddled in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump "is a disaster at foreign policy,"hed likely say, as he did in September 2012. "Never had the experience or knowledge. He is not capable of doing the job."

"We pay for his golf,"hed complain.

When looking through the presidents tweets from days past, his views on the Obama White House and all of Washingtons flaws seem to foreshadow the exact problems hed soon face after assuming the Oval Office. Its as if a distant, previous Donald Trump is echoing through the Twittersphere, begging the new president to heed his own advice through the constant rebukes and rejection of then-President Obama.

Call it the theory of "Trumpodynamics, as some users have coined it: for every action he takes as president, there is an equal and opposite Trump tweet disagreeing with it.

Trump, the first president in over 40 years who hasnt released his tax returns, used to rail on Obama as "the least transparent presidentever."

Imagine what that Trump must think of the man now seated at the Resolute Desk.

Hed attack todays Trump for "constantly issuing executive orders that are major power grabs of authority,"as he did to Obama in July 2012 when the president signed an order on federal communications during national security and emergency preparedness.

In his first 100 days as the leader of the free world, Trump set a record for the most executive orders ever signed into law since World War Two.

His contradictions in shooting down Obama to his own time in office run the gamut.He apparently no longer believes the president needs to hold China accountable for currency manipulation (Trump hasstated as president that China does not manipulate its currency after tweeting that it does for years),to whether a leader should focus on governing, instead of campaign rallies and huge speeches in states he won a majority of the vote.

And when it comes to vacation time, pre-election Trump sold Americans the biggest dream of all in his tunnel-vision focus on Obama's travels.

It's virtually impossible to keep up with Trumps opinions on any number of issues, as the president is fluid in his stances on matters ranging from national topics like LGBT workplace protections to global policy concerns, including NATO. But the vast majority of his pre-White House tweets all seem to agree with one thing: by Trump's standards, his own presidency is failing.

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Donald Trump Is A Terrible President, According To His Own Tweets About Obama - Newsweek

A paper set to be delivered at next weeks SIGGRAPH 2017 conference has garnered a lot of pre-confab attention because the technology could possibly be used to produce fake news videos. But the technology described in the paper, Synthesizing Obama: Learning Lip Sync From Audio, could have many more beneficial uses, especially in the entertainment and gaming industries.

Researchers from the University of Washington have developed the technology to photorealistically put different words into former President Barack Obamas mouth, based on several hours of video footage from his weekly addresses. They used a recurrent neural network to study how Obamas mouth moves, then they manipulated his mouth and head motions as to sync them to rearranged words and sentences, creating new sentences.

Its easy to see how this could potentially be used for nefarious purposes, but the technology is a long way away from becoming widely available and it would be fairly easy to detect in fake videos, according to Supasorn Suwajanakorn, the lead author of the study. It would be relatively easy to develop a software to detect fake video, he says. Producing a truly realistic, hard-to-verify video may take much longer than that due to technical limitations.

SIGGRAPHs conference chair Jerome Solomon, dean of Cogswell Polytechnical College, notes that any new technology can be used for good or bad. This is new technology in computer graphics, he explains. Were making things that might not be believable believable and worlds that dont exist exist. And I think people potentially using any technology out of our industry could use it for bad purposes or good.

Plus, Solomon says echoing Suwajanakorn, I think its a ways away from being available to everybody. Our conference is really a place where new technology comes in through our technical papers program, but it takes awhile for the technology to appear in the tools. Developers have to go and create the software to actually take this research and get it into the tools.

And there are a wide variety of uses for this particular technology.

Automatically editing video to allow accurate lip-sync to a new audio track is a novel advance on a very hot topic with many practical applications, says Marie-Paule Cani,SIGGRAPHs technical paper chair. It could be used, for instance, to seamlessly dub a movie in a foreign language, or to correct what people said in video footage and no cost.

A number of papers and exhibits of new technology will be on display at SIGGRAPH 2017, to be held July 30 through Aug. 3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Among the many new technologies will be a presentation by brain-computer interface company Neurable. They make a cap that you put on your head and it reads your brainwaves so you can use it instead of a mouse or a keyboard to do different things, says Solomon. Theyre coming to SIGGRAPH with that technology to show how you can use it to play a game. Imagine playing a game without have a controller in your hand.

A new addition to SIGGRAPH this year is a VR theater with ongoing programming. Were going to show VR films, Solomon explains. Well have high-end VR headsets and can actually demonstrate VR storytelling. With the sound and the high-end digital, its a really different experience.

Originally posted here:
Technology That Turns Obama's Words Into Lip-Synced Videos to Be Featured at SIGGRAPH - Variety

For months, the world has been captivated by the slow drip of information about Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

R. David Edelman, a former advisor to President Obama on technology and cyber issues isn't as worried about what the Russians did in the past as he is about what the state-actor could do in the future.

Dr. Edelman says the current news environment and emerging technology could create the perfect conditions for Russia to mislead the American public with misinformation.

"It is worth thinking and perhaps worrying about the intersection of Russia-style information operations and artificial intelligence," said Edelman. "Too often, people simply believe what they see online, especially if it confirms an existing bias. And new research is showing just how easy it is to impersonate a voice, an image, or even a video of a well-known official," he said.

The former cyber policy director imagines a fake broadcast being accepted as truth.

"I think in 5 years it will be very difficult to tell truth from fiction. Video forgery, audio forgery, deep learning provides tools that state and non-state actors could use to create confusion," said Edelman.

While malicious Russian cyber activity in nothing new to the U.S., the tactics used have become more sophisticated over the years. In 2014, hackers thought to be working for the Russian government broke into an unclassified White House computer system, according to reports. Then, there was the hacking of the State department email system which was described by law enforcement and congressional officials briefed on the investigation as the "worst ever" intrusion against a federal agency. In 2016, cyber hacking activities were aimed at Democratic party groups including Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, and his emails were released on WikiLeaks as part of an "influence campaign" directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a declassified U.S. intelligence report.

"What we saw in the election hacking was simply an extension of a longstanding series of aggressive actions Russia has undertaken throughout modern history usually within their sphere of influence, in the region to sow discord to favor the political preferences and to ultimately discredit the West," he said.

As Obama's cyber policy lead Edelman was on the team that established the U.S.-Russia "red phone" designed to de-escalate cyber crises. The phone was used by Obama to warn Putin of potential consequences if Russian interference didn't stop. "While we did find ways to work together, to try to prevent crises or miscalculations, there was no point in the last nine years where U.S. experts regarded the Russians as a friendly actor," Edelman said.

The election meddling was in line with Russia's policy goal of destabilizing the Western order, he said. Still, Edelman thinks the Trump candidacy may have led them to become bolder as time went on. "They saw the potential to really shake things up," he said.

Since the Russian security services didn't hack the election in the sense of changing votes from one to the other, the narrative around the cyber intrusion should change, Edelman said.

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Here's what keeps Obama's former cyber policy advisor up at night - CNBC