Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Scammer Successfully Deepfaked CEO’s Voice To Fool Underling Into Transferring $243,000
September 3rd, 2019I don’t entirely believe this one, but it’s interesting if true. When I’ve been in a position to spend tens of thousands of dollars of a company’s money, it never happened based on just a phone call with the CEO. But, hey, these kids today… Via: Gizmodo: The CEO of an energy firm based in […]
Hong Kong Protestors Using Mesh Messaging App China Can’t Block
September 3rd, 2019Via: Fortune: How do you communicate when the government censors the internet? With a peer-to-peer mesh broadcasting network that doesn’t use the internet. That’s exactly what Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters are doing now, thanks to San Fransisco startup Bridgefy’s Bluetooth-based messaging app. The protesters can communicate with each other — and the public — using […]
Ford Is Bringing All-Electric F150 Pickup to Market ‘Before 2022’
September 3rd, 2019The Oh Shit! moment seems to have finally arrived at Ford. I wonder from where they’re planning to get the batteries? Via: Electrek: Ford has already confirmed that it is finally making an all-electric version of its best-selling F150 pickup truck, but it wasn’t clear when it would be available until now. The automaker says […]
Proposal to Use Tech Company Surveillance Platforms to Predict Mass Shooters
September 2nd, 2019Via: Vanity Fair: Donald Trump is finally considering taking action to prevent mass shootings—not by enacting gun-control measures, but with a creepy proposal to somehow identify the “neurobehavioral signs” of “someone headed toward a violent explosive act.” According to the Washington Post, which first reported on the secret project under White House consideration Thursday, the […]
Retrofit Robot Pilot Can Grab Flight Controls, Read Instruments, Take Off, Navigate, Land
August 31st, 2019Does it chat with ATC??? Via: New Scientist: A robot pilot is learning to fly. It has passed its pilot’s test and flown its first plane, but it has also had its first mishap too. Unlike a traditional autopilot, the ROBOpilot Unmanned Aircraft Conversion System literally takes the controls, pressing on foot pedals and handling […]
How to Teach an Iris Scanner That the Eye It’s Looking at Is Dead
August 29th, 2019Via: IEEE: Conventional wisdom has held that the iris begins decaying only minutes after death. Thanks to Maciejewicz’s work, we discovered that wisdom to be wrong: If cadavers are kept cool, the eyes can still be used for identification for up to three weeks postmortem. Researchers had also assumed that recognition systems could not accurately […]
National-Security Concerns Threaten Undersea Data Link Backed by Google, Facebook
August 28th, 2019The U.S. killed Pacific Fibre back in 2012 due to Chinese involvement. Via: Wall Street Journal: U.S. officials are seeking to block an undersea cable backed by Google, Facebook Inc. and a Chinese partner, in a national-security review that could rewrite the rules of internet connectivity between the U.S. and China, according to people involved […]
Experimental U.S. Air Force Space Plane Breaks Previous Record for Orbital Spaceflight
August 26th, 2019Via: Space.com: The U.S. Air Force’s X-37B space plane just broke its spaceflight-duration record. At 6:43 a.m. EDT (1043 GMT) today (Aug. 26), the robotic X-37B sailed past the program mark of 717 days, 20 hours and 42 minutes, which was set by the previous mission, known as Orbital Test Vehicle 4 (OTV-4). The current […]
Errors in Cellphone Location Evidence Force Denmark to Review 10,000 Verdicts
August 26th, 2019Via: The Verge: Errors in cellphone location data have prompted authorities in Denmark to review 10,700 court cases to see if flawed evidence lead to incorrect convictions. The New York Times reports that the issues date back in 2012, and consist of two bugs. The first relates to how raw data from phone companies is […]
Silicon Valley Firms Building Chinese-Style Social Credit Systems
August 26th, 2019Via: Fast Company: Many Westerners are disturbed by what they read about China’s social credit system. But such systems, it turns out, are not unique to China. A parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and in part by surveillance of social […]
