Author: Sellbiz

Ethiopia’s hydropower dam on the Blue Nile River has angered downstream neighbors, especially Sudan, where people rely on the river for farming and other livelihoods. To reduce the risk of conflict, a group of scientists has used artificial intelligence, AI, to show how all could benefit. But getting Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt to agree on an AI solution could prove challenging, as Henry Wilkins reports from Khartoum, Sudan. …

The Biden administration approved more than $23 billion worth of licenses for companies to ship U.S. goods and technology to blacklisted Chinese companies in the first quarter of 2022, a Republican lawmaker said Tuesday. The data comes amid growing pressure on the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden to further expand a broad crackdown on shipments of sensitive U.S. technology to China from Republican lawmakers, who now control the House of Representatives. “Overwhelmingly, [the Commerce Department] continues to grant licenses that allow critical U.S. technology to be sold to our adversaries,” Republican Representative Michael McCaul, chair of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said at a hearing on combating the generational challenge of Chinese aggression, as he grilled U.S. officials for allowing the licenses to be approved. “How does this align with your statement that ‘we’re doing everything within [the Commerce Department’s] power to prevent sensitive U.S. technologies from getting in the hands of [Chinese] military, intelligence services or other parties?’” McCaul said the Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, denied only 8% of license requests to sell to companies on the U.S. trade blacklist during the January to March period last year. Commerce Department official Alan Estevez, who oversees U.S. export policy, told the hearing that a Trump-era policy that allows China’s blacklisted telecommunications equipment maker Huawei to receive some U.S. technology below the “5G level” is “under assessment.” Estevez also described TikTok as a “threat,” noting that a powerful committee that reviews foreign investments in the United …

Mexico’s president announced Tuesday that electric car company Tesla has committed to building a major plant in the industrial hub of Monterrey in northern Mexico. President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador said the promise came in phone calls he had Friday and Monday with Tesla head Elon Musk. It would be Tesla’s third plant outside the U.S., after one in Shanghai and one near Berlin. Lopez Obrador had previously ruled out such a plant in the arid northern state of Nuevo Leon, where Monterrey is the capital, because he didn’t want water-hungry factories in a region that suffers water shortages. But he said Musk’s company had offered commitments to address those concerns, including using recycled water. “There is one commitment that all the water used in the manufacture of electric automobiles will be recycled water,” Lopez Obrador said. The president said it would be a large investment without giving a dollar amount and did not specify what the plant would produce. He said it was unclear if it would produce batteries, an industry Mexico desperately wants despite not having a current domestic supply of lithium. Lopez Obrador said the company planned to release details on Wednesday. “This is going to mean a considerable investment and many, many jobs,” he said. “My understanding is that it will be very big.” Investment estimated to be $10 billion Monterrey is highly industrialized and close to the U.S. border and had long been considered the frontrunner for any Tesla investment. But the city suffered water …

Holding the bulky brick cellphone he’s credited with inventing 50 years ago, Martin Cooper thinks about the future. Little did he know when he made the first call on a New York City street from a thick gray prototype that our world — and our information — would come to be encapsulated on a sleek glass sheath where we search, connect, like and buy. He’s optimistic that future advances in mobile technology can transform human lives but is also worried about risks smartphones pose to privacy and young people. “My most negative opinion is we don’t have any privacy anymore because everything about us is now recorded someplace and accessible to somebody who has enough intense desire to get it,” the 94-year-old told The Associated Press at MWC, or Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest wireless trade show where he was getting a lifetime award this week in Barcelona. Besides worrying about the erosion of privacy, Cooper also acknowledged the negative side effects that come with smartphones and social media, such as internet addiction and making it easy for children to access harmful content. But Cooper, describing himself as a dreamer and an optimist, said he’s hopeful that advances in cellphone technology have the potential to revolutionize areas like education and health care. “Between the cellphone and medical technology and the Internet, we are going to conquer disease,” he said. It’s a long way from where he started. Cooper made the first public call from a handheld portable telephone on …

Europe’s existing telecom networks aren’t up to the job of handling surging amounts of internet data traffic, a top European Union official said Monday, as he defended a consultation on whether Big Tech companies should help pay for upgrades. The telecom industry needs to reconsider its business models as it undergoes a “radical shift” fueled by a new wave of innovation such as immersive, data-hungry technologies like the metaverse, Thierry Breton, the European Commission’s official in charge of digital policy, said at a major industry expo in Barcelona called MWC, or Mobile World Congress. Breton’s remarks came days after he announced a consultation on whether digital giants should help contribute to the billions needed to build the 27-nation bloc’s future communications infrastructure, including next-generation 5G wireless and fiber-optic cable connections, to keep up with surging demand for digital data. “Yes, of course, we will need to find a financing model for the huge investments needed,” Breton said in a copy of a keynote speech at the MWC conference. Telecommunications companies complain they have had to foot the substantial costs of building and operating network infrastructure only for big digital streaming platforms like Netflix and Facebook to benefit from the surging consumer demand for online services. “The consultation has been described by many as the battle over fair share between Big Telco and Big Tech,” Breton said. “A binary choice between those who provide networks today and those who feed them with the traffic. That is not how I see things.” …

A top U.S. cybersecurity official launched a warning shot at major technology companies, accusing them of “normalizing” the release of flawed and unsafe products while allowing the blame for safety issues, security breaches and cyberattacks to fall on their customers. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly called Monday for new rules and legislation to hold technology and software companies accountable for selling products that she says are released despite known vulnerabilities. While massive hacking campaigns by China and other adversaries, including Russia, Iran and North Korea, are a major problem, “cyber intrusions are a symptom rather than a cause,” Easterly told an audience at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “The cause, simply put, is unsafe technology products,” she said. “The risk introduced to all of us by unsafe technology is frankly much more dangerous and pervasive than the [Chinese] spy balloon, but somehow we’ve allowed ourselves to accept it.” The push for regulation and legislation is not entirely new. Both Easterly and former National Cyber Director Chris Inglis, who stepped down earlier this month, warned during their confirmation hearings more than a year and a half ago that government action could be required if private companies refused to do more. “Enlightened self-interest, that’s apparently not working. … Market forces, that’s apparently not working,” Inglis said at the time.  Now, with China running a “massive and sophisticated” hacking program, and threats from other countries and from cyber criminals constantly growing, “we have to make a fundamental shift,” Easterly …

Twitter Inc has laid off at least 200 employees, or about 10% of its workforce, the New York Times reported late on Sunday, in its latest round of job cuts since Elon Musk took over the micro-blogging site last October.  The layoffs on Saturday night impacted product managers, data scientists and engineers who worked on machine learning and site reliability, which helps keep Twitter’s various features online, the NYT report said, citing people familiar with the matter.  Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.  The company has a headcount of about 2,300 active employees, according to Musk last month.  The latest job cuts follow a mass layoff in early November, when Twitter laid off about 3,700 employees in a cost-cutting measure by Musk, who had acquired the company for $44 billion.  Musk said in November that the service was experiencing a “massive drop in revenue” as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation.  Twitter recently started sharing revenue from advertisements with some of its content creators.  Earlier in the day, The Information reported that the social media platform laid off dozens of employees on Saturday, aiming to offset a plunge in revenue.  …

Mexico is undergoing a fevered competition among states to win a potential Tesla facility in jostling reminiscent of what happens among U.S. cities and states vying to win investments from tech companies. Mexican governors have gone to extremes, like putting up billboards, creating special car lanes or creating mock-ups of Tesla ads for their states. And there’s no guarantee Tesla will build a full-fledged factory. Nothing is announced, and the frenzy is based mainly on Mexican officials saying Tesla boss Elon Musk will have a phone call with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The northern industrial state of Nuevo Leon seemed to have an early edge in the race. It painted the Tesla logo on a lane at the Laredo-Colombia border crossing into Texas last summer and is erecting billboards in December in the state capital, Monterrey, that read “Welcome Tesla.” The state governor’s influencer wife, Mariana Rodriguez, was even shown in leaked photos at a get-together with Musk. However, López Obrador appeared to exclude the semi-desert state from consideration Monday, arguing he wouldn’t allow the typically high water use of factories to risk prompting shortages there. That set off a competitive scramble among other Mexican states. The governors’ offers ranged from crafty proposals to near-comic ones. “Veracruz is the only state with an excess of gas,” quipped Gov. Cuitláhuac García of the Gulf Coast state, before quickly adding “gas … for industrial use, for industrial use!” A latecomer to the race, García had to try harder: He noted …

The latest folding-screen smartphones, immersive metaverse experiences, AI-powered chatbot avatars and other eye-catching technology are set to wow visitors at the annual MWC wireless trade fair that kicks off Monday. The four-day show, held in a vast Barcelona conference center, is the world’s biggest and most influential meeting for the mobile tech industry. The range of technology set to go on display illustrates how the show, also known as Mobile World Congress, has evolved from a forum for mobile phone standards into a showcase for new wireless tech. Organizers are expecting as many as 80,000 visitors from as many as 200 countries and territories as the event resumes at full strength after several years of pandemic disruptions. Here’s a look at what to expect: Metaverse There was a lot of buzz around the metaverse at last year’s MWC and at other recent tech fairs like last month’s CES in Las Vegas. Expect even more at this event. Several companies are planning to show off their metaverse experiences that will allow users to connect with each other, attend events far away, or enter fantastical new online worlds. Software company Amdocs will use virtual and augmented reality to give users a “metatour” of Dubai. Other tech and telecom companies promise metaverse demos to help with physical rehab, virtually try on clothes, or learn how to fix aircraft landing gear. The metaverse’s popularity exploded after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in late 2021 exalted it as the next big thing for the internet and …

Google is blocking some Canadian users from viewing news content in what the company said is a test run of a potential response to a Canadian government’s online news bill. Bill C-18, the Online News Act, would require digital giants such as Google and Meta, which owns Facebook, to negotiate deals that would compensate Canadian media companies for republishing their content on their platforms. The company said it is temporarily limiting access to news content for under 4% of its Canadian users as it assesses possible responses to the bill. The change applies to its ubiquitous search engine as well as the Discover feature on Android devices, which carries news and sports stories. All types of news content are being affected by the test, which will run for about five weeks, the company said. That includes content created by Canadian broadcasters and newspapers. “We’re briefly testing potential product responses to Bill C-18 that impact a very small percentage of Canadian users,” Google spokesman Shay Purdy said in a written statement on Wednesday in response to questions from The Canadian Press. The company runs thousands of tests each year to assess any potential changes to its search engine, he added. “We’ve been fully transparent about our concern that C-18 is overly broad and, if unchanged, could impact products Canadians use and rely on every day,” Purdy said. A spokeswoman for Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said Canadians will not be intimidated and called it disappointing that Google is borrowing from Meta’s …

People generate more than 50 million tons of electronic waste every year, including copiers, televisions, and computers. Laptops are part of the problem, but engineers at Dell Technologies are working on a new approach to help keep them out of landfills. Tina Trinh reports. Camera: Deana Mitchell …

Participants at a global U.N. conference in France’s capital on Wednesday urged the international community to find better safeguards against online disinformation and hate speech. Hundreds of officials, tech firm representatives, academics and members of civil society were invited to the two-day meeting hosted by the United Nation’s cultural fund to brainstorm how to best vet content while upholding human rights. “Digital platforms have changed the way we connect and face the world, the way we face each other,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in opening remarks. But “only by fully evaluating this technological revolution can we ensure it is a revolution that does not compromise human rights, freedom of expression and democracy.” UNESCO has warned that despite their benefits in communication and knowledge sharing, social media platforms rely on algorithms that “often prioritize engagement over safety and human rights.” Filipina investigative journalist Maria Ressa, who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for exposing abuses under former president Rodrigo Duterte, said social media had allowed lies to flourish. “Our communication systems today are insidiously manipulating us,” she told attendees. “We focus only on content moderation. It’s like there is a polluted river. We take a glass … we clean up the water and then dump it back,” she said. But “what we have to do is to go all the way to the factory polluting the river, shut it down and then resuscitate the river.” She said that at the height of online campaigns against her for her …

The Supreme Court is taking up its first case about a federal law that is credited with helping create the modern internet by shielding Google, Twitter, Facebook and other companies from lawsuits over content posted on their sites by others.  The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday about whether the family of an American college student killed in a terrorist attack in Paris can sue Google for helping extremists spread their message and attract new recruits.  The case is the court’s first look at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, adopted early in the internet age, in 1996, to protect companies from being sued over information their users post online.  Lower courts have broadly interpreted the law to protect the industry, which the companies and their allies say has fueled the meteoric growth of the internet and encouraged the removal of harmful content.  But critics argue that the companies have not done nearly enough and that the law should not block lawsuits over the recommendations, generated by computer algorithms, that point viewers to more material that interests them and keeps them online longer.  Any narrowing of their immunity could have dramatic consequences that could affect every corner of the internet because websites use algorithms to sort and filter a mountain of data.  “Recommendation algorithms are what make it possible to find the needles in humanity’s largest haystack,” Google’s lawyers wrote in their main Supreme Court brief.  In response, the lawyers for the victim’s family questioned the prediction of dire consequences. …

A growing number of startups are using artificial intelligence to replicate human voices. A company is creating synthetic voices for organizations to use for advertising, marketing and training. Phil Dierking reports. Videographer and video editor: Philip Dierking …

Under the fluorescent lights of a fifth grade classroom in Lexington, Kentucky, Donnie Piercey instructed his 23 students to try and outwit the “robot” that was churning out writing assignments. The robot was the new artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, which can generate everything from essays and haikus to term papers within seconds. The technology has panicked teachers and prompted school districts to block access to the site. But Piercey has taken another approach by embracing it as a teaching tool, saying his job is to prepare students for a world where knowledge of AI will be required. “This is the future,” said Piercey, who describes ChatGPT as just the latest technology in his 17 years of teaching that prompted concerns about the potential for cheating. The calculator, spellcheck, Google, Wikipedia, YouTube. Now all his students have Chromebooks on their desks. “As educators, we haven’t figured out the best way to use artificial intelligence yet. But it’s coming, whether we want it to or not.” One exercise in his class pitted students against the machine in a lively, interactive writing game. Piercey asked students to “Find the Bot:” Each student summarized a text about boxing champion and Kentucky icon Muhammad Ali, then tried to figure out which was written by the chatbot. At the elementary school level, Piercey is less worried about cheating and plagiarism than high school teachers. His district has blocked students from ChatGPT while allowing teacher access. Many educators around the country say districts need time to evaluate …

When Microsoft’s nascent Bing chatbot turns testy or even threatening, it’s likely because it essentially mimics what it learned from online conversations, analysts and academics said. Tales of disturbing exchanges with the artificial intelligence chatbot, including it issuing threats and speaking of desires to steal nuclear code, create a deadly virus, or to be alive, have gone viral this week. “I think this is basically mimicking conversations that it’s seen online,” Graham Neubig, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s language technologies institute, said Friday. A chatbot, by design, serves up words it predicts are the most likely responses, without understanding meaning or context. However, humans taking part in banter with programs naturally tend to read emotion and intent into what a chatbot says.  “Large language models have no concept of ‘truth,’ they just know how to best complete a sentence in a way that’s statistically probable based on their inputs and training set,” programmer Simon Willison said in a blog post. “So they make things up, and then state them with extreme confidence.” Laurent Daudet, co-founder of French AI company LightOn, said that the chatbot seemingly gone rogue was trained on exchanges that themselves turned aggressive or inconsistent. “Addressing this requires a lot of effort and a lot of human feedback, which is also the reason why we chose to restrict ourselves for now to business uses and not more conversational ones,” Daudet told AFP. The Bing chatbot was designed by Microsoft and the startup OpenAI, which has been …

U.S. safety regulators have pressured Tesla into recalling nearly 363,000 vehicles with its “Full Self-Driving” system because it misbehaves around intersections and doesn’t always follow speed limits. The recall, part of a larger investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration into Tesla’s automated driving systems, is the most serious action taken yet against the electric vehicle maker. It raises questions about CEO Elon Musk’s claims that he can prove to regulators that cars equipped with “Full Self-Driving” are safer than humans, and that humans almost never have to touch the controls. Musk at one point had promised that a fleet of autonomous robotaxis would be in use in 2020. The latest action appears to push that development further into the future. The safety agency says in documents posted on its website Thursday that Tesla will fix the concerns with an online software update in the coming weeks. The documents say Tesla is recalling the cars but does not agree with an agency analysis of the problem. The system, which is being tested on public roads by as many as 400,000 Tesla owners, makes such unsafe actions as traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, failing to come to a complete stop at stop signs, or going through an intersection during a yellow traffic light without proper caution, NHTSA said. In addition, the system may not adequately respond to changes in posted speed limits, or it may not account for the driver’s adjustments in speed, the documents …

A top U.S. law enforcement official on Thursday unveiled a new “disruptive technology strike force” tasked with safeguarding American technology from foreign adversaries and other national security threats. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, the No. 2 U.S. Justice Department official, made the announcement at a speech in London at Chatham House. The initiative, Monaco said, will be a joint effort between her department and the U.S. Commerce Department, with a goal of blocking adversaries from “trying to siphon our best technology.” Monaco also addressed concerns about Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok. The U.S. government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a powerful national security body, in 2020 ordered Chinese company ByteDance to divest TikTok because of fears that user data could be passed on to China’s government. The divestment has not taken place. The committee and TikTok have been in talks for more than two years aiming to reach a national security agreement. “I will note I don’t use TikTok, and I would not advise anybody to do so because of these concerns. The bottom line is China has been quite clear that they are trying to mold and put forward the use and norms around technologies that advance their privileges, their interests,” Monaco said. The Justice Department in recent years has increasingly focused its efforts on bringing criminal cases to protect corporate intellectual property, U.S. supply chains and private data about Americans from foreign adversaries, either through cyberattacks, theft or sanctions evasion. U.S. law enforcement officials have …

The United States Justice Department has in recent months escalated its antitrust probe on Apple Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.   Reuters had previously reported the Justice Department opened an antitrust probe into Apple in 2019.  The Wall Street Journal report said more litigators have now been assigned, while new requests for documents and consultations have been made with all the companies involved.  The probe will also look at whether Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS, is anti-competitive, favoring its own products over those of outside developers, the report added.  The Justice Department declined to comment, while Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  …

Billionaire Elon Musk said Wednesday that he anticipates finding a CEO for Twitter “probably toward the end of this year.” Speaking via a video call to the World Government Summit in Dubai, Musk said making sure the platform can function remained the most important thing for him. “I think I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s in a financial healthy place,” Musk said when asked about when he’d name a CEO. “I’m guessing probably toward the end of this year would be good timing to find someone else to run the company.” Musk, 51, made his wealth initially on the finance website PayPal, then created the spacecraft company SpaceX and invested in the electric car company Tesla. In recent months, however, more attention has been focused on the chaos surrounding his $44 billion purchase of the microblogging site Twitter. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military’s use of Musk’s satellite internet service Starlink as it defends itself against Russia’s ongoing invasion has put Musk off and on at the center of the war. Musk offered a wide-ranging 35-minute discussion that touched on the billionaire’s fears about artificial intelligence, the collapse of civilization and the possibility of space aliens. But questions about Twitter kept coming back up as Musk described both Tesla and SpaceX as able to function without his direct, day-to-day involvement. “Twitter is still somewhat a startup in reverse,” he said. “There’s work required here to get Twitter to sort of a stable position and to really build …

On Colorado’s northeastern plains, where the pencil-straight horizon divides golden fields and blue sky, a farmer named Danny Wood scrambles to plant and harvest proso millet, dryland corn and winter wheat in short, seasonal windows. That is until his high-tech Steiger 370 tractor conks out.  The tractor’s manufacturer doesn’t allow Wood to make certain fixes himself, and last spring his fertilizing operations were stalled for three days before the servicer arrived to add a few lines of missing computer code for $950.  “That’s where they have us over the barrel, it’s more like we are renting it than buying it,” said Wood, who spent $300,000 on the used tractor.  Wood’s plight, echoed by farmers across the country, has pushed lawmakers in Colorado and 10 other states to introduce bills that would force manufacturers to provide the tools, software, parts and manuals needed for farmers to do their own repairs — thereby avoiding steep labor costs and delays that imperil profits.  “The manufacturers and the dealers have a monopoly on that repair market because it’s lucrative,” said Rep. Brianna Titone, a Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors. “[Farmers] just want to get their machine going again.”  In Colorado, the legislation is largely being pushed by Democrats, while their Republican colleagues find themselves stuck in a tough spot: torn between right-leaning farming constituents asking to be able to repair their own machines and the manufacturing businesses that oppose the idea.  The manufacturers argue that changing the current practice with this type …

ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of social media platform TikTok, has dramatically upped its U.S. lobbying effort since 2020 as U.S.-China relations continue to sour and is now the fourth-largest Internet company in spending on federal lobbying as of last year, according to newly released data. Publicly available information collected by OpenSecrets, a Washington nonprofit that tracks campaign finance and lobbying data, shows that ByteDance and its subsidiaries, including TikTok, the wildly popular short video app, have spent more than $13 million on U.S. lobbying since 2020. In 2022 alone, Fox News reported, the companies spent $5.4 million on lobbying. Only Amazon.com ($19.7 million) and the parent companies of Google ($11 million) and Facebook ($19 million) spent more, according to OpenSecrets. In the fourth quarter of 2022, ByteDance spent $1.2 million on lobbying, according to Fox News. The lobbyists hired by ByteDance include former U.S. senators Trent Lott and John Breaux; David Urban, a former senior adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign who was also a former chief of staff for the late Senator Arlen Specter; Layth Elhassani, special assistant to President Barack Obama in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs; and Samantha Clark, former deputy staff director of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. In November, TikTok hired Jamal Brown, a deputy press secretary at the Pentagon who was national press secretary for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, to manage policy communications for the Americas, with a focus on the U.S., according to Politico. “This is kind of …

After seeing promising results in Eastern Europe, Google will initiate a new campaign in Germany that aims to make people more resilient to the corrosive effects of online misinformation. The tech giant plans to release a series of short videos highlighting the techniques common to many misleading claims. The videos will appear as advertisements on platforms like Facebook, YouTube or TikTok in Germany. A similar campaign in India is also in the works. It’s an approach called prebunking, which involves teaching people how to spot false claims before they encounter them. The strategy is gaining support among researchers and tech companies.  “There’s a real appetite for solutions,” said Beth Goldberg, head of research and development at Jigsaw, an incubator division of Google that studies emerging social challenges. “Using ads as a vehicle to counter a disinformation technique is pretty novel. And we’re excited about the results.” While belief in falsehoods and conspiracy theories isn’t new, the speed and reach of the internet has given them a heightened power. When catalyzed by algorithms, misleading claims can discourage people from getting vaccines, spread authoritarian propaganda, foment distrust in democratic institutions and spur violence. It’s a challenge with few easy solutions. Journalistic fact checks are effective, but they’re labor intensive, aren’t read by everyone, and won’t convince those already distrustful of traditional journalism. Content moderation by tech companies is another response, but it only drives misinformation elsewhere, while prompting cries of censorship and bias. Prebunking videos, by contrast, are relatively cheap and easy …

An uncrewed Russian supply ship docked at the International Space Station has lost cabin pressure, the Russian space corporation reported Saturday, saying the incident doesn’t pose any danger to the station’s crew. Roscosmos said the hatch between the station and the Progress MS-21 had been locked so the loss of pressure didn’t affect the orbiting outpost. “The temperature and pressure on board the station are within norms and there is no danger to health and safety of the crew,” it said in a statement. The space corporation didn’t say what may have caused the cargo ship to lose pressure. Roscosmos noted that the cargo ship had already been loaded with waste before its scheduled disposal. The craft is set to be undocked from the station and deorbit to burn in the atmosphere Feb. 18. The announcement came shortly after a new Russian cargo ship docked smoothly at the station Saturday. The Progress MS-22 delivered almost 3 tons of food, water and fuel along with scientific equipment for the crew. Roscosmos said that the loss of pressure in the Progress MS-21 didn’t affect the docking of the new cargo ship and “will have no impact on the future station program.” The depressurization of the cargo craft follows an incident in December with the Soyuz crew capsule, which was hit by a tiny meteoroid that left a small hole in the exterior radiator and sent coolant spewing into space. Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio were …