Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Chinese Scientists Develop Handheld Sonic Weapon for Crowd Control
September 19th, 2019Via: South China Morning Post: China has developed the world’s first portable sonic gun for riot control, the Chinese Academy of Sciences said. The rifle-shaped instrument, which was jointly developed with military and law enforcement, is designed to disperse crowds using focused waves of low frequency sound, the academy’s Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry […]
U.S. Drone Strike Kills 30 Pine Nut Farm Workers in Afghanistan
September 19th, 2019Via: Reuters: A U.S. drone strike intended to hit an Islamic State (IS) hideout in Afghanistan killed at least 30 civilians resting after a day’s labor in the fields, officials said on Thursday. The attack on Wednesday night also injured 40 people after accidentally targeting farmers and laborers who had just finished collecting pine nuts […]
Daimler Won’t Develop Any New Internal Combustion Engines, Focus Is Now on Electric Vehicles
September 19th, 2019Via: Electrek: After reigning in the auto industry as the powertrain of choice for a century, the internal combustion engine is finally dying. Now even Daimler says that it is stopping development of new internal combustion engines to focus on electric cars. The German automaker whose namesake, Gottlieb Daimler, is credited for having invented the […]
Amazon Buying 100,000 Electric Delivery Vans from Rivian
September 19th, 2019Via: Cnet: Online retail and technology giant Amazon said at an event today it plans to be completely carbon neutral come 2040, and electric-vehicle startup Rivian will help it get there. Rivian said Thursday it will design, build and service a new electric van exclusively for Amazon. A representative confirmed with Roadshow this will not […]
An Inside Look at All the Data CBP Collects About Everyone Crossing U.S. Borders
September 18th, 2019Via: Nextgov: Customs and Border Protection collects a wealth of information through the technologies deployed at the ports of entry, all of which is stored in a master crossing record the agency keeps on every individual who enters the country. That record contains information gathered at every crossing: the time, date and port of the […]
Health Fears Prompt Swiss 5G Revolt
September 18th, 2019Via: AFP: Switzerland was among the first countries to begin deploying 5G, but health fears over radiation from the antennas that carry the next-generation mobile technology have sparked a nationwide revolt. Demonstrators against the technology are due to fill the streets of Bern later this month, but already a number of cantons have been pressured […]
Facebook to Train AI Systems Using Police Video
September 17th, 2019Via: AP: Facebook will work with law enforcement organizations to train its artificial intelligence systems to recognize videos of violent events as part of a broader effort to crack down on extremism. Facebook’s AI systems were unable to detect live-streamed video of a mass shooting at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. The effort will […]
Canada: High Ranking RCMP Official Arrested After Vancouver Company Sold Encrypted Cellphones to International Drug Traffickers and Money Launderers
September 17th, 2019If the devices are so secure, why are we reading about this? Hmm… Via: CBC: The investigation into top RCMP civilian official Cameron Ortis began with a shadowy, multimillion-dollar Vancouver-based company run by Canadians that sold encrypted cellphones to drug traffickers and money launderers around the world. The key figures behind Phantom Secure Communications even […]
Volkswagen Is Creating a New Car Operating System
September 16th, 2019Via: Ars Technica: The cars we drive are increasingly defined as much by the software they run as their engines or chassis. It started slowly. Discrete electronic control units started to appear under the hood, controlling fuel management or anti-lock brakes. New functions required new code, run on new little black boxes, metastasizing to the […]
Russia Carried Out a ‘Stunning’ Breach of FBI Communications System
September 16th, 2019Via: Yahoo News: American officials discovered that the Russians had dramatically improved their ability to decrypt certain types of secure communications and had successfully tracked devices used by elite FBI surveillance teams. Officials also feared that the Russians may have devised other ways to monitor U.S. intelligence communications, including hacking into computers not connected to […]
