Archive for the 'Technology' Category
China is Fighting Toilet Paper Thieves with Facial Recognition Software
March 21st, 2017Via: The Verge: Biometric authentication is moving from phones to laptops and onward to… public bathrooms. Chinese authorities in Beijing are now combating a toilet paper stealing epidemic by locking the supplies away behind a dispenser powered by facial recognition software, according to a report from The New York Times. The unorthodox method ensures that […]
Has Lithium-Battery Genius John Goodenough Done it Again? Colleagues Are Skeptical
March 21st, 2017Via: Quartz: Researchers have struggled for decades to safely use powerful—but flammable—lithium metal in a battery. Now John Goodenough, the 94-year-old father of the lithium-ion battery, is claiming a novel solution as a blockbuster advance. If it proves out, the invention could allow electric cars to compete with conventional vehicles on sticker price. The improbable […]
People Dropping Out of Reality to Spend Their Time in Video Games
March 20th, 2017I’ve seen this over on Twitch.tv. I watch a guy who streams a game I play. He’s 25. The only job he ever had was applying window tint to cars at his aunt’s business. Now, he and his brother live in a flop house in Long Beach and stream video games on Twitch at all […]
Britain: Full Time Police Drones
March 20th, 2017Via: Daily Mail: The first 24-hour police drone unit is to be launched, amid fears that forces may have to rely on them because of falling officer numbers. The ‘flying squad’ will pursue suspects, find missing people and help solve murders. Assistant Chief Constable Steve Barry, national spokesman on drones, predicted forces across Britain would […]
Windows 10 Is Bringing Shitty Ads to File Explorer, Here’s How to Turn Them Off
March 18th, 2017— BEGIN POINTLESS RANT ABOUT HOPELESS SITUATION — It’s just incredible how grim Windows is getting. Linux is still terrible on the desktop, and Apple has abandoned macOS to embrace their primary role as a mobile phone company. Even people who stuck with Apple through the near collapse in the 1990s (that’s when I ditched […]
Five Pound Mini-Nukes
March 18th, 2017Via: CNBC: As for the mini-nukes, Del Monte expects they represent “the most horrific near-term nanoweapons.” Nanotechnology opens up the possibility to manufacture mini-nuke components so small that they are difficult to screen and detect. Furthermore, the weapon (capable of an explosion equivalent to about 100 tons of TNT) could be compact enough to fit […]
BMW Says Self-Driving Car to Be Level 5 Capable by 2021
March 17th, 2017Via: Reuters: German carmaker BMW (BMWG.DE) is on track to deliver a self-driving car by 2021, the company’s senior vice president for Autonomous Driving, Elmar Frickenstein, said on Thursday. “We are on the way to deliver a car in 2021 with level 3, 4 and 5,” Frickenstein told a panel discussion in Berlin, explaining the […]
The Entrepreneur with the $100 Million Plan to Link Brains to Computers
March 17th, 2017Via: MIT Technology Review: Entrepreneur Bryan Johnson says he wanted to become very rich in order to do something great for humankind. Last year Johnson, founder of the online payments company Braintree, starting making news when he threw $100 million behind Kernel, a startup he founded to enhance human intelligence by developing brain implants capable […]
Toy Drone Shot Down with Patriot Missile
March 15th, 2017Raytheon doesn’t mind. Meanwhile, in France: French Military Trains Eagles to Hunt Drones Via: BBC: A Patriot missile – usually priced at about $3m (£2.5m) – was used to shoot down a small quadcopter drone, according to a US general. The strike was made by a US ally, Gen David Perkins told a military symposium. […]
‘Pretty Much Tastes Like Chicken’
March 15th, 2017Via: MarketWatch: A Bay Area food-technology startup says it has successfully developed the world’s first chicken strip grown from self-reproducing cells without so much as ruffling a feather. And it pretty much tastes like chicken, according to people who were offered samples Tuesday in San Francisco, before a planned big reveal on Wednesday by Memphis […]
