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Italy earthquakes Europe Powerful quakes wreak new havoc in Italian mountain towns inShare 0print © Taziana Fabi / AFP | a destroyed house in the village of Borgo Sant'Antonio hit by earthquakes, on October 27, 2016 near Visso, central Italy. Text by NEWS WIRES Latest update : 2016-10-27 Authorities scrambled to find housing Thursday for thousands of people displaced by a pair of strong earthquakes that struck the same region of central Italy hit by a deadly quake in August. The one-two punch packed by the quakes some two hours apart Wednesday evening meant many people were out of harm's way before the second, more powerful quake, which toppled many historic buildings that had survived previous jolts. But no one was trapped in rubble and there were no reports of serious injuries. The only death in the aftermath was attributed to a heart attack in a 73-year-old man. Thousands of people ran outside into a downpour, and many slept in their cars as it was too late for authorities to scramble for emergency shelter. The government on Thursday earmarked 40 million euros ($43.6 million) to help rebuild, while civil protection officials said the first priority would be to find people hotels and other structures. People rest on camp beds in an accommodation centre for the victims of the earthquake that hit the area of Macerata, Visso and Ussita, on October 27, 2016 in Camerino, central Italy. © Alberto Pizzoli / AFP A destroyed building in the village of Visso, central Italy, on October 27, 2016. © Tiziana Fabi / AFP Destroyed houses in the village of Borgo Sant'Antonio hit by earthquakes, on October 27, 2016 near Visso, central Italy. © Tiziana Fabi / AFP Destruction in the village of Amatrice that was rattled by an earthquake on August 24, claiming nearly 300 lives. © Tiziana Fabi / AFP A handout picture released by the Vatican press office shows Pope Francis walking near the destroyed San Pellegrino church during a visit to the earthquake-hit areas of Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata del Tronto in central Italy. © Observatero Romano / AFP A damaged church in Ussita, central Italy, a day after twin earthquakes rocked the area, on October 27, 2016. © Tiziana Fabi / AFP People rest on camp beds in an accommodation centre for the victims of the earthquake that hit the area of Macerata, Visso and Ussita, on October 27, 2016 in Camerino, central Italy. © Alberto Pizzoli / AFP A destroyed building in the village of Visso, central Italy, on October 27, 2016. © Tiziana Fabi / AFP Previous Next "We have to avoid that people sleep in cars or tents," said the head of Italy's civil protection agency, Fabrizio Curcio. "The plan is to bring people to hotels and then to come up with temporary solutions with calm." 'Quick reaction' Mayors of towns scattered in the mountain region spanning the Umbria and Marche regions say many more homes were rendered uninhabitable, on top of those damaged in the devastating August quake. In the town of Ussita, Mayor Marco Rinaldi said his town had been "devastated," with up to 80 percent of the houses no longer inhabitable. Macerata prefect Roberta Preziotti said people were able to react quickly to the first quake because of the early hour. "And by the time the second, stronger quake hit there was no one still in their houses. There was a quick reaction thanks to the time of day, which allowed an immediate evacuation," she told The Associated Press. For some people in the mountainous region, the second jolt felt stronger than the Aug. 24 quake that killed nearly 300 people. Seismologists say the two new quakes and clusters of smaller shocks were aftershocks to the deadly event. "This time the house was upside down, everywhere, the walls, the cupboards, the wardrobes were moving. The big wooden, heavy wardrobes were moving, were sliding around," Elena Zabunchi, a Ukrainian resident of Visso said. Camerino Mayor Gianluca Pasqui said the town's historic bell tower had collapsed, but emphasized that reconstruction work after a 6.1 quake in 1997 appeared to have contributed to the absence of serious injury. "I can say that the city didn't have victims. That means that even if there is a lot of damage probably the reconstruction in the historic center was done in a correct and adequate manner. Because otherwise, we would be speaking of something else," Pasqui told Sky TG24. Concern for elderly The president of Umbria region, Catiuscia Marini, told RAI state television that officials are scrambling to come up with temporary housing, mindful that with winter approaching and temperatures dropping, tents can't be deployed as they were after the August quake. The concern for the predominantly elderly po[CENSORED]tion of the remote mountain region was repeated by other officials. Marini said that after the quakes many people will be fearful of staying even in hotels deemed safe, and that solutions like campers were being considered. Curcio said they were looking for solutions out of the quake zone and toward the coast. "We don't have injured, we have people who are very afraid, who have anxiety, especially the elderly," she said. In Visso, where about 800 people were without shelter, Mayor Giuliano Passaglini said he was only able to provide shelter for a couple hundred residents overnight, and most people spent the night in their cars. He told residents Thursday that "tonight, we are not leaving anyone in the streets," laying out options for accommodations. Firefighters were helping residents to retrieve objects from their homes in areas that were sealed off because they are deemed dangerous. Most buildings were intact, showing only cracks. The mayor estimated that two-thirds of the town's 1,500 houses had sustained some damage while the remaining residents preferred not to return home until checks were made to ensure safety. The first quake at 7:10 p.m. had a magnitude of 5.4. But the second one a little more than two hours later was eight times stronger at 6.1, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quakes, shaking buildings in Rome some 230 kilometers (145 miles) southwest of the epicenter, were actually aftershocks of the magnitude 6.2 earthquake from two months ago. Because they were so close to the surface - about 10 kilometers, or 6 miles - they have the potential to cause more shaking and more damage.

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You may now have more messaging apps than you have close friends. As of this week, there are six prominent chat apps in the United States — or as I see it, one too many. The latest to join the horde is Allo, Google’s highly anticipated messaging app that lets people take advantage of artificial intelligence to chat and make plans. Google began offering the smarter app on Wednesday. Allo is appearing at a time when smartphones are already crowded with chat apps. IMessage from Apple is prominent among iPhone owners. Facebook Messenger is widely used on that social network. Also po[CENSORED]r is WhatsApp, the chat service from Facebook that has largely replaced text messaging internationally. Add to the list Slack, a group chat tool that is po[CENSORED]r among businesses, and Google Hangouts, which was released in 2013, and you have six. I asked the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who studies the relationship between brain size and social circles, about the overload. His research has found that most people have the mental capacity to sustain 150 meaningful relationships, and among them, only five close ones. “Having more apps than close friends doesn’t help, as something will have to go,” Mr. Dunbar said in an email, though he noted that the various messaging apps serve different purposes. Younger people are shying away from chatting on Facebook, for example, to have more private conversations on apps like WhatsApp. With that backdrop in mind, I tested Allo for five days and compared it with the apps that are most similar to it: Google Hangouts, Apple iMessage and Facebook Messenger. After weighing the pros and cons, my advice is that people can hold off on downloading Allo, largely because its artificially intelligent assistant was unhelpful. But if Allo matures, users will probably want to ditch the Hangouts app. The Unhelpful Assistant First, some context about Allo. Google announced the app in May, aiming to highlight the company’s push into artificial intelligence. Its older chat app, Hangouts, will remain, but Google will emphasize that product’s use as a videoconferencing and messaging app for businesses. Continue reading the main story Tech Fix A research-driven feature aimed at solving everyday problems related to consumer technology. Off to College? Maybe These Devices Should Go Along AUG 10 Alexa, What Else Can You Do? Getting More From Amazon Echo JUL 27 What’s the Right Age for a Child to Get a Smartphone? JUL 20 The Downside to Cord-Cutting JUL 13 While Limited, Wi-Fi-First Phones Are a Good, Frugal Bet JUN 29 See More » To understand how Allo works, it’s easiest to think of the app’s A.I. assistant as an office intern who is lurking in the background, eager to chime in. The assistant analyzes messages you have typed or dictated and, when appropriate, springs into action with automatically generated phrases you can choose to reply with or suggestions for Google searches that may help accomplish tasks. When you’re having a conversation with another person, for example, the assistant suggests ways it can help. Saying “Want to see a movie tonight?” prompts the assistant to offer a Google search for movie showtimes or to reply with suggestions like “Sure, what time?” or “Not really.” Here is where Allo became frustrating for me. Asking an assistant to search “movie showtimes tonight” should load a list of movies and corresponding showtimes. Instead, Google’s assistant shows a list of movies without showtimes; only after tapping on a film can you ask for times. Sometimes that doesn’t even work. Asking for showtimes for the movie “Snowden” loaded movies playing at a movie theater called UA Snowden Square Stadium 14. Not helpful — unless, of course, you live in Columbia, Md. Allo also tries to guess what your written response might be to certain types of phrases, questions or photos. With photos, the app occasionally identifies what’s inside the photo to generate a suggested reaction. So when you receive a photo of a dog, Allo loads responses like “adorable.” This feature ran into several problems. When I sent a picture to a friend of my cat sitting inside my car, Allo suggested this response to the friend: “What a cute car!” (Sorry, Allo, but my Prius is the opposite of cute.) When I sent photos of my dog to the same friend, Allo’s assistant correctly identified the breed, a Pembroke Welsh corgi. It suggested the reaction “Nice pembroke welsh corgi.” Impressive, but if someone said that to me in real life, I would add that person to my list of suspected Cylons. For now, Allo’s artificial assistance feels limited. So if I were a manager seeking an assistant, I probably wouldn’t hire Allo. But I would politely tell the candidate to reapply after getting more experience. Photo Google's new messaging app, Allo. Credit Google Shortcomings in Chat Each messaging app has its own purpose, but Allo has the most in common with Facebook Messenger, iMessage and Google Hangouts. That’s because all four are capable of adding some personality with stickers and emojis. So I tested Messenger, iMessage and Hangouts against Allo to determine their pros and cons. The highlights: ■ iMessage, Hangouts and Messenger work on mobile devices and computers. Allo works only on Android and iOS mobile devices, though Google plans to expand Allo to computers later. ■ iMessage and Messenger support third-party apps, adding features like sending money to friends within messages. Google has no plans to support outside apps in Allo. ■ Messenger has more sticker packs than Allo, which has only about 25. ■ Facebook is experimenting with chat bots that you can talk to for shopping or summoning an Uber car. Allo’s assistant was quicker to respond and more natural to communicate with than Facebook’s chat bots. ■ IMessage stickers are more fun to use. In iMessage, stickers can be placed on top of messages and photos — add a cartoon mustache to your selfie, for example. On Allo, stickers can be sent only as stand-alone messages. ■ The Hangouts app is very much like Allo, without the half-baked assistant. Allo has more entertaining stickers, including a muscular yellow bull that appears to be twerking. The big difference between the two is that the Hangouts app relies primarily on your contacts list linked to a Google Mail account, whereas Allo pulls contacts from your device’s phone book. The upshot: iMessage and Messenger have more features than Allo. There are two major features missing from Allo: the ability to chat using a computer and using third-party apps and games to do more within messages. With Allo, Google has the opportunity to stand out by offering superior artificial intelligence. Neither Messenger nor Allo has great A.I. yet, but Google’s assistant has a better start. Private, but Not Airtight Finally, there is privacy to consider. It’s tough to say how Allo will fare in terms of security until encryption experts take a close look at the app. Here’s what we know so far: By default, Apple’s iMessage service is end-to-end encrypted, which means a message is encrypted when it is sent from your device and remains encrypted when it passes through Apple’s server and reaches the recipient. Google Hangouts and Facebook Messenger both lack end-to-end encryption, so at some point when messages pass through their servers, they can see your messages. Allo has end-to-end encryption turned off by default because its server needs to see the messages to work its A.I. magic. However, Allo includes a mode called Incognito with full encryption enabled, which people can use for private conversations, similar to a private mode on a web browser. But, of course, the A.I. features do not work in Incognito. So Allo is a step ahead of Hangouts and Messenger for privacy. But by default (and by design), it is not as secure as iMessage. Bottom Line I recommend waiting for Allo to become available on computers and for its A.I. to become smarter. At the moment, Allo’s assistant will waste more time than it saves when it comes to helping you make plans, and it will probably make conversations more awkward. Google said it was still improving and refining its algorithms, and Allo’s assistant will get better over time. Once Allo’s assistant matures, the Hangouts app will become redundant and you’ll be able to delete it from your device. The catch, of course, is that Allo’s A.I. won’t become sophisticated until more people use it and share feedback. For now, if I really need help, I’m going to request a competent intern.

A NEW luxury brand is arriving in the United States with two sedans, one of them a repurposed model already available here. The strategy? Woo upscale buyers with prices so compelling and service so seamless that buying a Mercedes or BMW means practically throwing Benjamins out the window. Prestige? Heritage? Absolutely none. That described Lexus, Toyota’s luxury offshoot, in 1989. In 2016, those words apply to Genesis. The Genesis name should sound familiar. It has been an upmarket sedan sold by Hyundai. Now, though, Genesis has become the Korean automaker’s luxury brand, spiffing up that car and rechristening it the G80. May I direct your attention to the new brand’s flagship — the G90. The G90 has its cross hairs on the Audi A8, BMW 7 Series, Lexus LS and Mercedes S-Class. I can attest that the G90 is an exceptionally realized luxury sedan. Most people will never ride in a car this fancy. Measuring that praise, note that the G90 lacks superfluous gee-gaws like perfumed ventilation and massaging seats that capture the imagination of the moneyed on cars like the 7 Series and S-Class. Oh, and there are no Genesis dealerships. It will be years before those expensive showrooms are built. For now, you still have to go to the Hyundai lot. But value buyers with secure egos should have no issues walking past Elantras and Santa Fes at the 350 Hyundai dealerships specifically selected to sell the G90. (All 830 Hyundai dealers can sell the near-luxury G80.) A fully optioned all-wheel-drive V8-powered G90 retails for $73,150 — an alluring contrast to, say, a base in-line-6 rear-drive BMW 7 Series that starts significantly higher, at $82,495. Buyers, or those who lease, may never return to the Hyundai lot. For servicing, a valet picks the car up at home or work and a loaner is left behind. This pampering and scheduled maintenance is complimentary for the first three years or 36,000 miles. No ground has been broken with styling. The G90’s exterior design is a derivative mix of the established competitors. But the interior is properly paneled with a small grove of trees and lined in high-quality hides. There is visual and tactile heft here. Only luxury snobs will notice a couple of Hyundai buttons; door releases where the underside is hollow and a shutdown chime that retains the Hyundai theme (albeit more richly orchestrated). Features like climate-controlled seats and auto braking with pedestrian detection can’t be added — because they’re all standard. G90’s only choices, in fact, are these: paint and interior color; rear or all-wheel drive; and engine. I drove a 3.3-liter twin-turbo V6 model with rear drive at $69,050. With 365 horsepower and 376 pound-feet of torque, the engine nearly matches BMW’s buttery in-line 6. Most buyers won’t need the V8. Silky 8-speed transmission shifts may go unnoticed. Drive modes change transmission and throttle mapping, steering weight and suspension. On a 340-mile road trip, I saw 25 m.p.g. (the E.P.A. rates my tester at 17 city, 24 highway using premium fuel). Assisted by adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist, I arrived refreshed. Every glass panel is acoustically laminated. There is enough sound insulation to quiet a house, and a two-piece wheel design forms a hollow chamber that quells road noise. All libraries should be this hushed. That isolation makes listening to Peter Gabriel’s “Mercy Street” on the Lexicon audio system a magical experience. The body is impressively stout. An adaptive suspension offers serenity and control with very little body roll in “auto” mode. Even firmed up nicely in “sport” mode, this is not a canyon carver. But then, neither are the competitors. Everything about the G90 seems double dipped in Teflon. That said, the 7 Series and S Class can feel like they get one more coat. The rear accommodations coddle executives who are driven, although they will have to provide their own screens. Unlike the BMW 7 Series, there are no LCD displays in back. A rear armrest console controls climate, sunshades and audio, while letting those in the back move the front passenger seat forward to add legroom. V8 models add ventilation and a power recline feature to the heated rear chairs. No panoramic roof, though, which is available on a Hyundai Sonata. Genesis plans six models by 2021, including two sport utility vehicles that will be crucial to the brand’s ability to compete across the full luxury board. By then, it should have stand-alone showrooms, too. Even though Hyundai built the Equus (the G90 is the spiritual successor to that car), the more established luxury brands benefit from decades of nit-picking, refinement and anticipation of the demands of top-tier buyers. Genesis may need to move quickly up that learning curve. But like the first Lexus LS 400, clearly G90 offers compelling luxury and value.

LONDON — Germany’s largest bank appears in danger, sending stock markets worldwide on a wild ride. Yet the biggest source of worry is less about its finances than a vast tangle of unknowns — not least, whether Europe can muster the will to mount a rescue in the event of an emergency. In short, fears that Europe lacks the cohesion to avoid a financial crisis may be enhancing the threat of one. The immediate source of alarm is the health of Deutsche Bank, whose vast and sprawling operations are entangled with the fates of investment houses from Tokyo to London to New York. Deutsche is staring at a multibillion-dollar fine from the Justice Department for its enthusiastic participation in Wall Street’s festival of toxic mortgage products in the years leading up to financial crisis of 2008. Given Deutsche’s myriad other troubles — a role in the mani[CENSORED]tion of a financial benchmark, claims of trades that violated Russian sanctions and a generalized sense of confusion about its mission — the American pursuit of a stiff penalty comes at an inopportune time. It heightens the sense that Deutsche — whose shares have lost more than half their value this year — needs to secure additional investment, lest it leave itself vulnerable to some new crisis. The biggest worries center on what happens if Deutsche falls apart to the point that it threatens the globe with a financial shock — and whether new rules and buffers put in place since the last crisis will keep the pain from spreading. Regulations that took effect this year in the European Union standardize how member countries are supposed to handle the potential implosion of a large financial institution. Banks, too, have put aside more money to deal with potential losses. Deutsche could pose the first test of the new arrangement. Recent challenges have underscored concerns about the limits of solidarity in Europe. Continue reading the main story From the chaos of the sovereign debt crisis to the acrimony over an influx of refugees, European authorities have proved something less than an exemplar of coordinated government action. The European Union has become a focus of populist anger, further constraining options. And Germany has opposed bailouts for lenders in other lands, making a Deutsche rescue politically radioactive. All of which adds to worries that Deutsche amounts to a fire burning, one that might yet become an inferno, while the fire department is consumed with existential arguments over its purpose. If the alarm sounds, no one can be sure what, if anything, will happen. In the worst case — now highly unlikely — the bank could collapse, inciting a scramble to pull money from markets around the globe. Institutions that trade with Deutsche would feel an urge to collect their cash immediately. Given the scale of the bank’s balance sheet — 1.8 trillion euros, or more than $2 trillion — that inclination is likely to spread to every crevice of finance. Economies would grind to a halt. Jobs and fortunes would disappear. Photo “Rumors are causing significant swings in our stock price,” John Cryan, the chief executive of Deutsche Bank, said on Friday. “It is our task now to prevent distorted perception from further interrupting our daily business.” Credit Daniel Roland/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Despite murmurings in pundit quarters that this sort of situation may be unfolding, provoking comparisons with the catastrophic bankruptcy of the American investment banking giant Lehman Brothers eight years ago, most economists dismiss such talk as overwrought and overblown. Deutsche is sitting on cash reserves worth €240 billion, or about $269 billion. It has sold bonds that can be converted to equity should the need arise. The Justice Department’s proposed fine of $14 billion is viewed as the opening of a negotiation that could cost Deutsche a fraction of that amount — thinking that sent the stock surging on Friday. Not least, Deutsche Bank is a classic example of the species of financial animal known as Too Big To Fail. “We saw what happened with Lehman,” said Nicola Borri, a finance professor at LUISS, a university in Rome. “It’s impossible that the authorities would let something like that happen again. It has ties with all the banks in the world. It is highly leveraged. A disorderly default would be very, very difficult for the entire financial system.” On both sides of the Atlantic, the financial crisis prompted the construction of new regulatory authorities and requirements that banks set aside more funds in reserve against troubles. “The system is much more robust and resilient because of the buffers,” said Nicolas Véron, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a research institution in Brussels. “There are pockets of fragility, but broadly speaking, the system is better prepared.” But the markets do not appear to fully buy that the defenses are secure. Deutsche is heavily involved in the trading of derivatives, the exotic financial instruments that were at the center of the 2008 crisis. Derivatives can be so mind-bendingly complex that no one fully grasps who owes what to whom until someone big enough to rattle markets suddenly cannot pay. Then, fear takes over, and investors dump holdings indiscriminately. This lowers the value of even solid assets on bank balance sheets, giving rise to further cause for concern. Because Deutsche has been dominated by its investment banking operations — meaning it is not sitting on a large pile of plain deposits as a cushion — it is especially vulnerable to such volatility. Fear, in other words, is not just a symptom of trouble but also a cause. This makes Deutsche’s problems the world’s problems. Not for nothing did the International Monetary Fund in June declare Deutsche to be “the most important net contributor to systemic risks” on earth. A collapse may be exceedingly unlikely. Yet the beginning would probably feel something like recent days. Thursday brought reports that hedge funds were quietly extracting their money from Deutsche’s coffers. The bank’s shares plummeted to a new low. SPOTLIGHT ON A GERMAN GIANT No lender in the world has more potential to create financial mayhem than Deutsche Bank. Struggling to Find DirectionShares swooned over the last year. Unlike rivals, the bank cannot fall back on collecting deposits or managing investor accounts. The risky investment bank is its only obvious font for profit. $14 Billion DisputeThe bank disclosed that the U.S. Justice Dept. was seeking a $14 billion penalty over its role in the 2008 mortgage crisis. Reports the German government might step in were followed by denials by Berlin. Darling of Short-SellersStrictly by the numbers, the giant bank would seem to be in no danger of failing. But market confidence is fickle. “It’s kind of scary. In principle, this is a fairly solid bank, but due to rumors the bank is getting in trouble,” said an economist in Munich. Markets RattledShares have hit historic lows amid the uncertainty. “Why would you keep collateral with Deutsche Bank right now?” said an outspoken critic. Friday morning, Deutsche’s chief executive officer, John Cryan, released a letter to his staff offering assurances that the bank boasted “strong fundamentals.” The stock recovered slightly on those comments, but the sense remained that the need for reassurance attested to concerns. The biggest form of insurance against panic is confidence that larger players — in this case, European authorities — stand at the ready to mount a rescue, should one be required. But confidence is not something Europe has proved terribly skilled at instilling. Its abilities to marshal a bailout are dubious. New rules introduced to discourage reckless investments by large financial institutions bar taxpayer-financed bailouts. Germany has been adamant that these strictures be applied, rebuffing a recent attempt by the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, to secure an exemption allowing him to inject taxpayer money into the Italian banking system. The optics of Germany seeking a way around the rules for its largest lender would be especially problematic. The Deutsche chief and the German government both shot down a report that the bank had asked that a bailout be prepared. More broadly, Germany has been the most fervent voice that reckless economic pursuits should be punished, no matter the human toll. As Athens has negotiated with European authorities and the International Monetary Fund for a series of bailouts, Germany has demanded deep cuts to Greek public spending, sharply cutting pension payments to retirees. The Greek government used much of the bailout money to pay back debts to German banks. Against this backdrop, a German bailout of its largest bank would reinvigorate accusations that it uses the European Union as a cover to pursue its own national interests. This dynamic has force in the markets, presenting another factor that investors must absorb as the evaluate they risks of holding Deutsche’s debts and shares. “The fact that we don’t know the reaction of the authorities is a factor of uncertainty,” said Mr. Veron of Bruegel. Here is a feedback loop that amplifies the risks. The likelihood that Deutsche needs a rescue appears small, yet the possibility that a rescue could be forged seems close to nil. That tightens the pressure on Deutsche. And yet Deutsche’s stature may provide the decisive form of insurance. In event of emergency, the authorities might have to act, whatever the politics. “Deutsche Bank is so big and so systemically important that the rules will be bent,” Mr. Borri said. “If I were an investor, I would assume that the rules would be bent.”

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In recent years, IBM has been known for its forays into artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Now, the technology provider is moving deeper into financial consulting with the acquisition of a prominent — and at times controversial — Washington firm. The company said on Thursday that it was buying the Promontory Financial Group. The financial terms were not disclosed. Founded by Eugene A. Ludwig, a former top banking regulator and a law school friend of former President Bill Clinton, Promontory became one of the top financial consulting firms to emerge after the global financial crisis of 2008. Its employees, including many former financial regulators from around the world, advised banks on regulatory matters. But the firm has drawn scrutiny because of the coziness of its ties to the banks it advises when it is meant to provide objective analyses of banks’ problems. Last year, Promontory settled an investigation by New York State’s financial regulator into its work for the British bank Standard Chartered. In a statement, IBM said that Promontory and its 600 employees around the world would mesh with its own offerings, including its Watson artificial intelligence platform. In particular, Promontory is expected to help train Watson, with the goal of aiding IBM’s financial clients on managing their regulatory obligations and potentially reducing the costs of doing so. “What Watson is doing to transform oncology by working with the world’s leading oncologists, we will now do for regulation, risk and compliance,” Bridget van Kralingen, a senior vice president for IBM’s industry platforms team, said in a statement. “This initial offering of Watson Financial Services is emblematic of the transformative cloud-based solutions that IBM Industry Platforms will bring to clients.” “We believe the future of business and regulation will be driven by the need for advanced technology alongside deep subject-matter expertise,” Mr. Ludwig said in a statement

Google is one of the most valuable companies in the world, but its future, like that of all tech giants, is clouded by a looming threat. The search company makes virtually all of its money from ads placed on the World Wide Web. But what happens to the cash machine if web search eventually becomes outmoded? That worry isn’t far-fetched. More of the world’s computing time keeps shifting to smartphones, where apps have supplanted the web. And internet-connected devices that may dominate the next era in tech — smartwatches, home-assistant devices like Amazon’s Echo, or virtual reality machines like Oculus Rift — are likely to be free of the web, and may even lack screens. But if Google is worried, it isn’t showing it. The company has long been working on a not-so-secret weapon to avert its potential irrelevance. Google has shoveled vast financial and engineering resources into a collection of data mining and artificial intelligence systems, from speech recognition to machine translation to computer vision. Now Google is melding these advances into a new product, a technology whose ultimate aim is something like the talking computer on “Star Trek.” It is a high-stakes bet: If this new tech fails, it could signal the beginning of the end of Google’s reign over our lives. But if it succeeds, Google could achieve a centrality in human experience unrivaled by any tech product so far. The company calls its version of this all-powerful machine the Google Assistant. Today, it resembles other digital helpers you’ve likely used — things like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana. It currently lives in Google’s new messaging app, Allo, and will also be featured in a few new gadgets the company plans to unveil next week, including a new smartphone and an Amazon Echo-like talking computer called Google Home. But Google has much grander aims for the Assistant. People at the company say that Sundar Pichai, who took over as Google’s chief executive last year after Google was split into a conglomerate called Alphabet, has bet the company on the new tech. Mr. Pichai declined an interview request for this column, but at Google’s developer conference in May, he called the development of the Assistant “a seminal moment” for the company. If the Assistant or something like it does not take off, Google’s status as the chief navigator of our digital lives could be superseded by a half-dozen other assistants. You might interact with Alexa in your house, with Siri on your phone, and with Facebook Messenger’s chatbot when you’re out and about. Google’s search engine (not to mention its Android operating system, Chrome, Gmail, Maps and other properties) would remain po[CENSORED]r and lucrative, but possibly far less so than they are today. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE TECH FIX Allo’s Tryout: 5 Days With Google’s Annoying Office Intern SEPT. 21, 2016 TECH FIX Alexa, What Else Can You Do? Getting More From Amazon Echo JULY 27, 2016 STATE OF THE ART Tripping Down a Virtual Reality Rabbit Hole JUNE 22, 2016 State of the Art A column from Farhad Manjoo that examines how technology is changing business and society. For the Debaters: What Shall We Do About the Tech Careening Our Way? SEP 21 How Did G.M. Create Tesla’s Dream Car First? SEP 14 What’s Really Missing From the New iPhone: Cutting-Edge Design SEP 7 Gawker’s Gone. Long Live Gawker. AUG 24 A Charming Alternative Universe of You, Your Friends and No News AUG 17 See More » That’s the threat. But the Assistant also presents Google with a delicious opportunity. The “Star Trek” computer is no metaphor. The company believes that machine learning has advanced to the point that it is now possible to build a predictive, all-knowing, superhelpful and conversational assistant of the sort that Captain Kirk relied on to navigate the stars. Photo Credit Stuart Goldenberg The Assistant, in Google’s most far-out vision, would always be around, wherever you are, on whatever device you use, to handle just about any informational task. Consider this common situation: Today, to book a trip, you usually have to load up several travel sites, consult your calendar and coordinate with your family and your colleagues. If the Assistant works as well as Google hopes, all you might have to do is say, “O.K., Google, I need to go to Hong Kong next week. Take care of it.” Based on your interactions with it over the years, Google would know your habits, your preferences and your budget. It would know your friends, family and your colleagues. With access to so much data, and with the computational power to interpret all of it, the Assistant most likely could handle the entire task; if it couldn’t, it would simply ask you to fill in the gaps, the way a human assistant might. Computers have made a lot of everyday tasks far easier to accomplish, yet they still require a sometimes annoying level of human involvement to get the most out of them. The Assistant’s long-term aim is to eliminate all this busywork. If it succeeds, it would be the ultimate expression of what Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, once described as the perfect search engine: a machine that “understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want.” At this point, a few readers may be recoiling at the potential invasion of autonomy and privacy that such a machine would necessitate. The Assistant would involve giving ourselves over to machines more fully. We would trust them not just with our information but increasingly with our decisions. Many people are already freaked out by what Google, Facebook and other tech companies know about us. Would we be willing to hand over even more power to computers? Those are important questions, but they are also well down the road. For now, the more pressing question for the Assistant is: Will it even work? Photo Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, calls the development of the assistant “a seminal moment” for the company. Credit Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Google has technological advantages that suggest it could build a more capable digital assistant than others have accomplished. Many of the innovations that it has built into its search engine — including its knowledge graph database of more than a billion people, places and things, and the 17 years it has spent trying to understand the meaning of web queries — will form the Assistant’s brain. Google has also been one of the leaders in machine learning, the process that allows computers to discover facts about the world without being explicitly programmed. Machine learning is at the heart of a number of recent advances, including Google Photos’ uncanny capacity to search through your images for arbitrary terms (photos of people hugging, for instance). “We are in the process of transforming into a machine-learning company,” Jeff Dean, who is in charge of Google Brain, the company’s artificial intelligence project, told me this year. For each problem Google solves this way, it gets better at solving other problems. “It’s a boulder going downhill gathering more momentum as it goes,” Mr. Dean said. If you use the Assistant today, you’ll see some of these advances. As my colleague Brian X. Chen explained last week, if your friend sends you a picture of his dog on Allo, Google Assistant will not only recognize that it’s a dog, but it will also tell you the breed. That’s an amazing technological feat. But as Brian pointed out, it’s also pretty useless. Why does your friend care if you know his dog’s a Shih Tzu? This gets to a deeper difficulty. The search company might have the technical capacity to create the smartest assistant around, but it’s not at all clear that it has the prowess to create the friendliest, most charming or most useful assistant. Google needs to nail not just Assistant’s smarts, but also its personality — a new skill for Google, and one that its past forays into social software (Google Plus, anyone?) don’t speak highly of. Then there is the mismatch between Google’s ambitions and Assistant’s current reality. Danny Sullivan, the founding editor of Search Engine Land, told me that so far, he hadn’t noticed the Assistant helping him in any major way. “When I was trying to book a movie, it didn’t really narrow things down for me,” he said. “And there were some times it was wrong. I asked it to show me my upcoming trip, and it didn’t get that.” Of course, it’s still early. Mr. Sullivan has high hopes for the Assistant. It would be premature to look at the technology today and get discouraged about its future, especially since Google sees this as a multiyear, perhaps even decade-long project. And especially if Google’s future depends on getting this right.

The United States said on Thursday that a Syrian and Russian assault on Aleppo was a gift to Islamic State militants, while a frustrated U.N. aid chief lamented that the only deterrent left seemed to be “the court of world opinion and disgust.” Moscow vowed to press on with its offensive in Syria, while U.S. officials searched for a tougher response to Russia’s decision to ignore the peace process and seek a military victory on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. United Nations aid chief Stephen O’Brien called on the 15-member U.N. Security Council on Thursday to stop “tolerating the utter disregard for the most basic provisions of international humanitarian law.” The recent focus of the fighting is a Syrian and Russian bid to recapture rebel-held eastern Aleppo. “East Aleppo this minute is not at the edge of the precipice, it is well into its terrible descent into the pitiless and merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed in Syria,” O’Brien said. “The only remaining deterrent it seems is that there will be real accountability in the court of world opinion and disgust - goodness knows, nothing else seems to be working to stop this deliberate, gratuitous carnage of lives lost,” he said. French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre said he had started discussions with some council members on a draft resolution to try and impose a ceasefire in Aleppo. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said she had not yet seen a draft text. “What Assad and Russia are doing in Aleppo is soul-shattering,” Power told reporters. “What they are doing is sowing not only the doom of this country ... but it is going to generate more refugee flow, more radicalization. The United States said on Thursday that a Syrian and Russian assault on Aleppo was a gift to Islamic State militants, while a frustrated U.N. aid chief lamented that the only deterrent left seemed to be “the court of world opinion and disgust.” Moscow vowed to press on with its offensive in Syria, while U.S. officials searched for a tougher response to Russia’s decision to ignore the peace process and seek a military victory on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. United Nations aid chief Stephen O’Brien called on the 15-member U.N. Security Council on Thursday to stop “tolerating the utter disregard for the most basic provisions of international humanitarian law.” The recent focus of the fighting is a Syrian and Russian bid to recapture rebel-held eastern Aleppo. “East Aleppo this minute is not at the edge of the precipice, it is well into its terrible descent into the pitiless and merciless abyss of a humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed in Syria,” O’Brien said. “The only remaining deterrent it seems is that there will be real accountability in the court of world opinion and disgust - goodness knows, nothing else seems to be working to stop this deliberate, gratuitous carnage of lives lost,” he said. French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre said he had started discussions with some council members on a draft resolution to try and impose a ceasefire in Aleppo. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said she had not yet seen a draft text. “What Assad and Russia are doing in Aleppo is soul-shattering,” Power told reporters. “What they are doing is sowing not only the doom of this country ... but it is going to generate more refugee flow, more radicalization. “What they are doing is a gift to ISIL (Islamic State) and (Nusra Front), the groups that they claim that they want to stop,” she said. Russia has also accused the United States of “de facto support for terrorism” in Syria. As Washington threatens to walk away from talks with Russia on Syria unless the fighting stops, Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told reporters it was time “to move to a different form of diplomacy,” pointing to the Security Council. Rycroft also dismissed a Russian proposal for a 48-hour humanitarian pause in fighting in Aleppo. Since July, the U.N. has been calling for a weekly 48-hour truce to allow the delivery of aid to besieged areas. “The Russian proposal is designed to sound good, but to allow them to carry on their deadly bombing campaign,” he said. “What they are doing is a gift to ISIL (Islamic State) and (Nusra Front), the groups that they claim that they want to stop,” she said. Russia has also accused the United States of “de facto support for terrorism” in Syria. As Washington threatens to walk away from talks with Russia on Syria unless the fighting stops, Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told reporters it was time “to move to a different form of diplomacy,” pointing to the Security Council. Rycroft also dismissed a Russian proposal for a 48-hour humanitarian pause in fighting in Aleppo. Since July, the U.N. has been calling for a weekly 48-hour truce to allow the delivery of aid to besieged areas. “The Russian proposal is designed to sound good, but to allow them to carry on their deadly bombing campaign,” he said.

v1 text , blur , everything

Accpted

APPLE released the iPhone 7 last week along with iOS 10, a major upgrade for its po[CENSORED]r mobile operating system. What better time to download some apps to take the new hardware and software for a spin? In one update, Apple’s messaging system, iMessage, got a turbo boost. It now lets people embellish conversations with stickers, interactive drawings and animations. The messaging system even gets its own App Store for downloading third-party stickers and games. My favorite sticker app is Star Wars Stickers from Disney. The $2 app provides a number of cute, animated, cartoon images of characters from the “Star Wars” franchise, including BB-8, Obi-Wan Kenobi and C-3PO with his classic “Oh, my!” catchphrase. You can send the stickers as stand-alone images or drop them on top of written messages or photos. Add them to selfies you’re sending in iMessage, and suddenly the Death Star is exploding above you. The free Pac-Man sticker pack is another great option for some retro fun. Photo Stickers from Star Wars, Sticker Pals and others can be dropped into messages or added to photos. The Grammar Snob sticker app, for $1, lets you add editorial red ink over a text message to fix a friend’s bad grammar. Sticker Pals, which is free, is a more contemporary option, with hundreds of animated cartoon characters and special effects, as well as a neat feature that lets users send stickers to friends for their use. And the free Aardman Face Bomb sticker pack includes funny cartoon faces in the style of the Aardman animation studio. Apple iMessage also lets you play games within the app. With classic games like Words With Friends, which is free, this feature makes chatting throughout a game easier, so you can express your feelings when someone gets 50 points by dropping a word on a triple-word-score square. In addition, Chess42 is a free chess game that you can play directly inside an iMessage chat. There are also plenty of utility apps that can make iMessage more powerful. The Doodle: Schedule Maker app lets users set up a simple in-message voting system for particular dates — perfect for trying to pin down a time to get together with one or more contacts. Doodle is free. When you need to split the bill, try Circle Pay, a digital money-transfer system that lets people send dollars, euros or Bitcoin through iMessage. The Circle Pay app requires some setup and registration, but it works simply in the iMessage interface, and it, too, is free. Photo Chess42 is an ultraminimalist chess game playable inside iMessage. The app iTranslate brings dynamic automated language translation to iMessage. You can chat with someone who speaks a different language and translate the conversation in real time, without having to leave the chat interface. It’s free, and it works fast and quite well, though the controls can be confusing and sometimes, as with any machine translation, the result may sound like a Spanish or Portuguese version of Yoda. Another test of the new iPhone’s performance is how it handles games. Monument Valley, which is $4, is a highly regarded 3-D puzzle game with clean, abstract graphics and simple gameplay: You have to guide your character through an architectural labyrinth that’s part M. C. Escher, part artwork all its own. Don’t be surprised if you stop just to admire how pretty it is. The Obscura app, at $5, lets users take full control of the photographic powers of the iPhone’s camera app. You can adjust the ISO and focus to get really creative; it’s almost like using a digital single-lens reflex camera. Move beyond Apple’s built-in keyboard with Microsoft’s Word Flow, which is free. Get a deeper understanding of how we measure time on Earth with the lovely Cosmic Watch clock app for $4. Back up your photos and documents to the cloud with Google Drive, which is free. And finally, turn your iPhone into a capable document scanner for $4 with Scanner Pro 7. Quick Calls DataMan Pro is a po[CENSORED]r app for tracking which apps on your phone are consuming the most mobile data. The app has been updated for iOS 10. It’s $6 and also works with Apple Watch. The third-party keyboard app SwiftKey has always been po[CENSORED]r because its predictive text features are great, but on Android, its makers have just taken the app to a new level. SwiftKey now has neural artificial intelligence, so instead of a simple suggestion algorithm, it looks at what you’re typing and tries to grasp the context of your message so it can provide better suggestions. SwiftKey is free.

I HAVE two vivid memories of the Porsche 911 Turbo. There was the first one I ever saw, parked in Duluth, Minn., in the spring of 1976. It was brown. Brown never looked so fast. The more recent encounter was a new 2017 Turbo S model, in Lava Orange, at Thunder Hill Raceway Park outside of Sacramento. This one I drove. Hard. That brown first-generation Turbo belonged to the son of Jeno Paulucci. Jeno made his initial fortune creating Chun King canned Chinese food. Yep, Chinese food. By an Italian-American. In Duluth. That old car pumped out a seething (for the day) 245 horsepower and was known for its tail-happy dynamics. All I knew is that I now foolishly wanted a whale tale on my dad’s Delta 88. While all 2107 911s are turbocharged, the Turbo is the 911’s 911. The Turbo is equally at home grabbing a gallon of milk or slaying supercars on closed courses. With all four of its wheels in action, the S coupe model tested from rest to 60 miles an hour in 2.8 seconds. Stuttgart produces more aggressive cars, like the 911 GT3 RS, but the Turbo has more balance. Imagine what the good people of Duluth would think of 580 horsepower (more than twice as much) and up to 553 pound-feet of torque produced by the 3.8-liter flat-6 engine. Granted, at 3,527 pounds the new 911 weighs some 900 pounds more than the original Turbo. But the Turbo’s electronic nannies, which might have more computing power than was available to the entire state of Minnesota in the late ’70s, will virtually assure the 911 always remains shiny side up. Thunder Hill is nearly five miles of off-camber corners, elevation changes and blind whoop-de-dos. Hurley Haywood, a much decorated endurance driver, offered two Info McNuggets. One: “I use the 7-speed PDK dual-clutch transmission in auto mode. You can’t do any better.” Two: “Trust the car, it will save you every time.” And with that, the other drivers and I eased onto the track slowly, and then, very fast. Pushing the Sport Response button on the steering wheel provides 20 seconds of engine overboost and aggressive shift calibration. Top speed is 205 miles an hour. I regularly flirted with 140 miles an hour at the end of the long straight section before massively scrubbing off speed to enter turn 1E. Ceramic brakes, standard on the S, do not fade. At all. Even under constant punishing. Did I mention it was 104 degrees? With some cars, these conditions can trigger gauge cluster messages that suggest stopping for a Coke while the drivetrain cools down. Not so with the Porsche. There’s a distinct feeling the Turbo S is built twice as strong as it needs to be. The eight cars on hand, including a few Cabriolets, ran constantly for five hours, stopping only for fuel. The sole hiccup? A windshield rock chip. Mr. Hurley was right. The PDK gearbox (the only one available) is a savant. Porsche’s electronic power steering provides good road feel, rare for the tech. My fingertips and keister knew exactly when all four tires were drifting in a controlled and precise way that the first Turbo never knew. The stability control feathers in as deftly as a Jedi mind trick, going full Darth Vader only when the driver does something stupid, which I’ll admit to. Once. I’ll claim professional evaluation. With no servicing whatsoever, I drove the tangerine Turbo away from the track south to Monterey, Calif., for the Pebble Beach Concours weekend. Then, picking up my son in San Jose, we motored northward along the coast. I volunteered to deliver the Turbo S to the Seattle press fleet. In 1,200 civilian miles, I learned that the Turbo S is livable as an everyday car, with a ride quality a skosh firmer than a standard 911. Porsche’s new touch-screen user interface with Apple CarPlay is a welcome improvement. The cabin is moderately quiet, and fuel economy is good for an overachiever. Seeing 26 m.p.g. on specified premium fuel, the car beat the E.P.A. estimate of 19 city, 24 highway. We were not lollygagging. A base 911 Turbo retails for about $160,000, and the Turbo S tested will lighten your lunch money account by $196,000. That buys a lot of pizza rolls. Jeno Paulucci created those too.

A Dutch-led investigation has concluded that the powerful surface-to-air missile system used to shoot down a Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine two years ago, killing all 298 on board, was trucked in from Russia at the request of Russian-backed separatists and returned to Russia the same night. The report largely confirmed the Russian government’s already widely documented role not only in the deployment of the missile system — called a Buk, or SA-11 — but also in the subsequent cover-up, which continues to this day. The report, by a team of prosecutors from the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine, was significant for applying standards of evidence admissible in court while still building a case directly implicating Russia, and it is likely to open a long diplomatic and legal struggle. With meticulous detail, working with cellphone records, social media, witness accounts and other evidence, the prosecutors traced Russia’s role in deploying the missile system into Ukraine and its attempts to cover its tracks afterward. The inquiry did not name individual culprits and stopped short of saying that Russian soldiers were involved. Announcing their findings at a news conference in Nieuwegein, in the Netherlands, the investigators were clear, however, that they planned to identify suspects and to determine who they think gave the orders and what their intentions were, in preparation for bringing criminal indictments. The evidence presented in the report strongly implicated the Russian authorities in a broad sense. The inquiry was the most detailed investigation to date of the attack on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a Boeing 777 flying to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, from Amsterdam. It is unlikely that anyone not connected with the Russian military would have been able to deploy an SA-11 missile launcher from Russia into a neighboring country. But in implicating Russia, the report raised perhaps a bigger question: What does the Netherlands plan to do about that? Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE Jet Wreckage Bears Signs of Impact by Supersonic Missile, Analysis Shows JULY 21, 2014 Downing of Jet Exposes Defects of Flight Precautions Over Ukraine JULY 18, 2014 Rebels in Ukraine Crowed of Past Attacks, but Deny This One JULY 18, 2014 ROZSYPNE JOURNAL Mourning and Seeking Answers Where Malaysia Airlines Jet Fell to Earth JULY 16, 2015 Russia, a nuclear-armed superpower, has already vetoed a Dutch-backed request to the United Nations to establish an international tribunal. Russia’s Constitution, in any case, prohibits the extradition of Russian citizens to stand trial abroad. And in the vanishingly unlikely event that suspects are handed over, it is unclear where they would stand trial. The prosecutors’ findings could be a factor in whether the European Union softens sanctions against Russia, but some members are already chafing at their effect on trade and calling for resuming full economic cooperation. Fred Westerbeke, the chief investigator, said that some evidence was being withheld on Wednesday to avoid alerting suspects, and also that more information was needed to build an open-and-shut case against individual suspects and to diagram the chain of command behind the order to deploy and launch. “We cannot and do not want to tell you everything yet, as that might play into the perpetrators’ hands,” he said, according to a translation. He invited witnesses from eastern Ukraine to come forward, saying they might be granted leniency in exchange for testimony. Identifying the suspects, Mr. Westerbeke said, was a question “for the long haul.” The report brought to light intriguing new evidence of the missile launcher’s route from Russia to Ukraine and back to Russia, if not identifying precisely who ordered that journey. Investigators suggested that a cooperating witness was a rebel soldier who had guarded the missile convoy on its quick return to Russia after the launch. They published new photographs of the launcher, perched on its flatbed trailer, being towed around eastern Ukraine by a white Volvo truck that had been commandeered from a heavy-equipment rental company in Donetsk. GRAPHIC Maps of the Crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 A Malaysia Airlines flight with nearly 300 people aboard crashed in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border on July 17. OPEN GRAPHIC The investigators said they had found a missile nose cone and fin by sifting through thousands of pieces of debris from the crash scene, listened to about 150,000 intercepted telephone calls and examined half a million photographs. One of the eeriest pieces of evidence emerged last year and was highlighted again on Wednesday. The pilots had no chance of saving the plane, and were perhaps the first to die, because the missile exploded yards from the cockpit. But one carried to earth in his body a pivotal clue: a butterfly-shaped piece of shrapnel, a trace from a type of warhead installed in Buk missiles in Russia’s arsenal, but not Ukraine’s. Both countries possess Buk missiles, but the model types are distinct. It would have been a hard piece of evidence to fake. Plastered onto the shrapnel shard, investigators said, were microscopic traces of glass of the type used by Boeing on its airliner cockpits, indicating clearly that it had passed through the plane’s windshield before lodging in the pilot’s body. In Moscow on Wednesday, in anticipation of the report, President Vladimir V. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, issued a statement to reporters decrying “speculation” about the plane, but it did not refer specifically to the report. “This whole story, unfortunately, is couched in a huge amount of speculation, unqualified and unprofessional information,” Mr. Peskov said. “There are irrefutable facts. In this case, it is important to draw conclusions with due account of the latest published information, that is, the primary data from radars that detected every airborne object that could take off or be in the airspace above militia-controlled territory.” Those radar images, released by the Russian military on Monday, showed nothing near the airliner, Mr. Peskov said. “If any missile had existed, it could have been fired only from another territory,” he said. “I do not say which exact territory it could be. It is specialists’ business.” The Dutch-led inquiry seemed to refute that claim, as well as a series of sometimes contradictory explanations and chains of events floated by the Kremlin and the Russian news media. Those claims included that the C.I.A. filled a drone with bodies and crashed it to discredit Russia, or that Ukrainians were trying to shoot down Mr. Putin’s plane but hit the civilian airliner instead. The radar images released this week contradicted a similar image that Russian officials showed two years ago, which depicted two dots: one for the airliner and a second for a Ukrainian fighter jet that Russia suggested could have shot it down. At the news conference, the investigators said Russia had not responded to their request for “primary original radar data.” Flight 17 was destroyed on July 17, 2014, amid intense fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine. The disaster deepened the already strained relations between Russia and the West. Among the casualties, the largest group were Dutch. Just a few days later, the United States government concluded that the plane had been brought down by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile launched from rebel-held territory and most likely provided by Russia to pro-Moscow separatists. The Dutch Safety Board determined in October 2015 that the plane had been shot down by a missile fired from a Buk surface-to-air system. The report of the Joint Investigation Team, led by Mr. Westerbeke, the Netherlands’ chief public prosecutor, corroborated that finding. It concluded that the weapon used in the attack had been brought to Ukraine from Russia, though it drew no conclusions about who gave the orders to move the weapon or, most important, to shoot. The investigators did, however, provide a timeline leading up to the destruction of the plane. First, in intercepted telephone conversations from the evening before the attack, separatists in eastern Ukraine were heard requesting the Buk missile system in order to defend themselves from Ukrainian airstrikes. Later, according to the intercepted conversations, they were told they would receive the weapons system that night. Second, the investigators found that a convoy of trucks brought the missile system, along with a large military vehicle that is used to launch the missiles, from the Russian border to the spot from which the missile was launched. The team said it had used intercepted phone calls, social media posts and witnesses’ testimony to piece together the route that the convoy took. It stopped in Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, where several witnesses saw the trucks, including a white one carrying the missile-launching vehicle. Third, the inquiry identified a patch of farmland where the missile was launched, about eight miles southeast from where the plane crashed. Finally, the investigators pieced together what they said was the path the missile system took on its way back to the Russian border. They said they had spoken to a separatist who confirmed part of the return route.