Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
IRS’s Big Data Tracking
June 15th, 2013Via: MSN: The Internal Revenue Service is collecting a lot more than taxes this year — it’s also acquiring a huge volume of personal information on taxpayers’ digital activities, from eBay auctions to Facebook posts and, for the first time ever, credit card and e-payment transaction records, as it expands its search for tax cheats [...]
On Technology Eliminating Jobs: ‘This Time It Might Be Different’
June 12th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review: Given his calm and reasoned academic demeanor, it is easy to miss just how provocative Erik Brynjolfsson’s contention really is. ÂBrynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year and a half that impressive advances in [...]
Ava 500 Telepresence System
June 10th, 2013Via: TechWorld: Ava 500 is essentially a Cisco TelePresence EX60 personal video endpoint mounted on top of an iRobot mobile robotics platform, which can self-navigate busy environments like offices, manufacturing floors and laboratories without bumping into people or objects. The robot is controlled via an iPad interface. This means that the remote user can select [...]
Robo-Raven
June 6th, 2013Via: Military.com: A robotic bird created by Army and University of Maryland researchers is tricking real flocks — and hawks — midair, making it a potential unsuspecting future war agent. Robo-Raven glides, soars and flaps like a real bird. Complete individual wing control allows for extreme aerobatics that no other mechanical bird has ever been [...]
Soldier Pleads Guilty to Murdering 16 Afghan Civilians
June 6th, 2013In other news: The following provides excerpts from the testimony of individuals who told our research team that they had survived or witnessed drone strikes, or lost family members in strikes. Via: Reuters: A U.S. Army sergeant who killed 16 Afghan civilians in cold blood last year pleaded guilty on Wednesday to premeditated murder and [...]
Germany Fears Revolution if Europe Scraps Welfare Model
May 31st, 2013This is a battle against the machine and it’s already lost. Via: Reuters: German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned on Tuesday that failure to win the battle against youth unemployment could tear Europe apart, and dropping the continent’s welfare model in favor of tougher U.S. standards would spark a revolution. Germany, along with France, Spain [...]
Sears Turning Shuttered Stores Into Data Centers
May 23rd, 2013Via: Data Center Knowledge: Will blinking blue lights of servers soon fill the aisles that previously offered the Blue Light Special? Sears Holdings has formed a new unit to market space from former Sears and Kmart retail stores as a home for data centers, disaster recovery space and wireless towers. With the creation of Ubiquity [...]
The Robot-Driven Data Center of Tomorrow
May 23rd, 2013Via: Data Center Knowledge: There is an evolution happening within the modern data center. Huge data center operators like Google and Amazon are quietly redefining the future of the data center. This includes the integration of robotics to create a lights-out, fully automated data center environment.
U.S. Acknowledges Killing of Four U.S. Citizens in Counterterrorism Operations
May 23rd, 2013More transparent and accountable now, promise. *wink* Via: Washington Post: The Obama administration acknowledged Wednesday that it has killed four Americans in overseas counterterrorism operations since 2009, the first time it has publicly taken responsibility for the deaths. Although the acknowledgment, contained in a letter from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to Congress, does [...]
DARPA: Robotic Hand Strong Enough to Hold 50lb Weight, Dexterous Enough to Use Tweezers
May 22nd, 2013Via: DARPA: The ARM-H track of DARPA’s Autonomous Robotic Manipulation (ARM) program focuses on development of robust, low-cost and dexterous robotic hand hardware. DARPA funded performers to design and build hand mechanisms that could replace the claw-like hands currently used on robots with hands incorporating 3-4 fingers and useable palms. The teams successfully produced hands [...]
