Archive for the 'Technology' Category
SpaceX Rocket Production Facility Approved by Port of Los Angeles
February 26th, 2020Via: Reuters: SpaceX, the private rocket company of high tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, won final approval on Tuesday to build a research and manufacturing plant for its deep-space Starship project on a tract of vacant land at the Port of Los Angeles.
Pentagon Preps Nuclear Moon Rocket
February 25th, 2020Via: Daily Beast: The U.S. government is working on an atomic rocket to send satellites into the vast space between Earth and the moon—before Beijing gets there with its own spacecraft.
Video Content Producers Increasingly Trying to Work Around YouTube Censorship
February 25th, 2020Here are three videos in a row that I just watched with people trying to dance around YouTube’s censorship and demonetization systems. In the first one, Dana Ashlie goes as far as showing a white board to convey a glossary of terms!
The Last Gas Cars Roll Off GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck Plant This Week
February 24th, 2020Via: Electrek: Last Thursday, the body of the last Chevrolet Impala inched down the assembly line at GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant. Employees gathered around the car, snapping pictures of the final internal-combustion vehicle to be made at the storied Detroit plant. It will roll off the assembly line this week. On Friday, roughly 800 General Motors […]
How to Deflect an Asteroid
February 23rd, 2020Via: MIT News: Now MIT researchers have devised a framework for deciding which type of mission would be most successful in deflecting an incoming asteroid. Their decision method takes into account an asteroid’s mass and momentum, its proximity to a gravitational keyhole, and the amount of warning time that scientists have of an impending collision […]
Counter Drone SWAT Team
February 22nd, 2020Via: Breaking Defense: Sometimes, when lives are at stake, even Silicon Valley can’t innovate fast enough. That’s why the director of the Defense Digital Service, Brett Goldstein, has started forming rapid-response “SWAT teams” drawing on the Defense Department’s in-house talent. The first such team that DDS director Brett Goldstein has created – pulling together both […]
Twitter Preparing Red Banners to Appear Below Potential Thoughtcrimes
February 21st, 2020Via: NBC: Twitter is experimenting with adding brightly colored labels directly beneath lies and misinformation posted by politicians and other public figures, according to a leaked demo of new features sent to NBC News. Twitter confirmed that the leaked demo, which was accessible on a publicly available site, is one possible iteration of a new […]
Sweden Is Now Testing Digital Version of Cash, the e-Krona
February 21st, 2020Via: MIT Technology Review: The Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, has announced the launch of a year-long pilot project of its proposed e-krona. The project will use distributed ledger technology inspired by the blockchains that run cryptocurrencies. Cashless in Sweden: Physical cash is headed toward obsolescence in Sweden. Nearly everyone uses a mobile payment application called […]
Tesla Autopilot Tricked Into Accelerating from 35 to 85 MPH by Speed Limit Sign Modified with Two Inches of Tape
February 21st, 2020Via: MIT Technology Review: Hackers have manipulated multiple Tesla cars into speeding up by 50 miles per hour. The researchers fooled the car’s Mobileye EyeQ3 camera system by subtly altering a speed limit sign on the side of a road in a way that a person driving by would almost never notice. This demonstration from […]
Aided by Machine Learning, Scientists Find a Novel Antibiotic Able to Kill Superbugs in Mice
February 21st, 2020Via: STAT: A study published Thursday in the journal Cell describes how researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used machine learning to identify a molecule that appears capable of countering some of the world’s most formidable pathogens. When tested in mice, the molecule, dubbed halicin, effectively treated the gastrointestinal bug Clostridium difficile (C. diff), […]
