In today’s Bulldog wrapup of science and technology news:

  • Tech companies move to target terrorist propaganda online
  • Car company offering red light-reading vehicles in Las Vegas
  • SpaceX’s 1st launch since rocket blast now bumped to January 
  • Surgeon General calls youth vaping a public health threat 

The details:

  • Tech companies move to target terrorist propaganda online

Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube are joining forces to more quickly identify the worst terrorist propaganda and prevent it from spreading online.

The new program announced Monday would create a database of unique digital “fingerprints” to help automatically identify videos or images the companies could remove.

The move by the technology companies, which is expected to begin in early 2017, aims to assuage government concerns — and derail proposed new federal legislation — over social media content that is seen as increasingly driving terrorist recruitment and radicalization, while also balancing free-speech issues.

Technical details were being worked out, but Microsoft pioneered similar technology to detect, report and remove child pornography through such a database in 2009. Unlike those images, which are plainly illegal under U.S. law, questions about whether an image or video promotes terrorism can be more subjective, depending on national laws and the rules of a particular company’s service.

Social media has increasingly become a tool for recruiting and radicalization by the Islamic State group and others. Its use by terror groups and supporters has added to the threat from so-called lone-wolf attacks and decreased the time from “flash to bang” — or radicalization to violence — with little or no time for law enforcement to follow evidentiary trails before an attack.

Under the new partnership, the companies promised to share among themselves “the most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos we have removed from our services — content most likely to violate all our respective companies’ content policies,” according to a joint announcement.

  • Car company offering red light-reading vehicles in Las Vegas

Audi this week is unveiling technology that enables vehicles to “read” traffic signals ahead and tell the motorist how long the wait will be.

It’s a simple display for the driver — a dashboard traffic signal icon and a timer — but the technology behind it is more complex. It uses 4G LTE cellular communication between the vehicle and a centralized traffic management control network.

The company theorizes that a driver who knows when a light will turn green is more relaxed and aware.

  • SpaceX’s 1st launch since rocket blast now bumped to January

SpaceX’s first launch since a rocket explosion at the pad has slipped to January.

The company said Wednesday it needs more time. So instead of launching in mid-December, SpaceX will try in early January.

SpaceX has been grounded three months since the dramatic accident, which originated in the upper stage of the Falcon rocket. The next Falcon to fly will carry 10 satellites for Iridium Communications, and launch from Southern California.

The Falcon and its satellite were destroyed in the massive fireball that erupted Sept. 1 as the rocket was being fueled for a test-firing. The pad remains damaged at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. SpaceX hopes to switch soon to another pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

  • Surgeon General calls youth vaping a public health threat

The U.S. surgeon general is calling e-cigarettes an emerging public health threat to the nation’s youth.

In a report being released Thursday, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy acknowledged a need for more research into the health effects of “vaping,” but said e-cigarettes aren’t harmless and too many teens are using them.

“My concern is e-cigarettes have the potential to create a whole new generation of kids who are addicted to nicotine,” Murthy told The Associated Press. “If that leads to the use of other tobacco-related products, then we are going to be moving backward instead of forward.”

Battery-powered e-cigarettes turn liquid nicotine into an inhalable vapor without the harmful tar generated by regular cigarettes. Vaping was first pushed as safer for current smokers. There’s no scientific consensus on the risks or advantages of vaping, including how it affects the likelihood of someone either picking up regular tobacco products or kicking the habit.