Archive for the 'Technology' Category
This Company Has Built a Profile on Every American Adult
January 24th, 2017Via: Bloomberg: Every move you make. Every click you take. Every game you play. Every place you stay. They’ll be watching you. Forget telephoto lenses and fake mustaches: The most important tools for America’s 35,000 private investigators are database subscription services. For more than a decade, professional snoops have been able to search troves of […]
South Korea Plans Near-Supersonic, ‘Hyper-Tube Train’
January 24th, 2017Via: South China Morning Post: South Korea is seeking to develop a train-like public transport concept that is almost as fast as the speed of sound reaching 1,000km/h, the Korea Railroad Research Institute (KRRI) said Tuesday. The state-run institute will join forces with other research groups and Hanyang University to build the near-supersonic “train”, which […]
When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the U.S.
January 24th, 2017In, 8 Men as Rich as Half the World, I joked, “Get yourself a side hustle and a podshare.” And now… Via: Bloomberg: The vast majority of Uber’s full-time drivers return home to their beds at the end of a day’s work. But all over the country, there are many who don’t. These drivers live […]
Silicon Valley Billionaires Prepping for Collapse Caused by Machines Eliminating Jobs
January 23rd, 2017Mmm hmm. Via: Recode: One of the more peculiar hobbies popular among the Silicon Valley elite is an obsession with preparing to survive for end times; its adherents are commonly called “preppers.” It’s the topic of an essay in the New Yorker this week, “Survival of the Richest” by Evan Osnos, which delves into why […]
Facial Recognition to Replace Passports in Security Overhaul at Australian Airports
January 23rd, 2017Via: Guardian: A radical overhaul of security at Australia’s international airports is the first step towards the government’s goal of automating 90% of air traveller processing by 2020. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection will start moving towards a “contactless” system for arrivals this year, Fairfax reported on Sunday – the most ambitious stage […]
Foxconn Weighs $7 Billion U.S. Factory With Apple
January 22nd, 2017In other news, Foxconn Plans to Replace Almost Every Human Worker with Robots. So, I’d take the 30,000 to 50,000 jobs statement below with a grain of salt. Via: Bloomberg: Foxconn Technology Group Chairman Terry Gou told reporters in Taipei the company is considering a joint investment with Apple Inc. for a display manufacturing facility […]
A New Era of Mass Surveillance is Emerging Across Europe
January 22nd, 2017Via: Just Security: In recent months, and in the wake of a series of terrorist attacks across Europe, Germany, France and the United Kingdom — Europe’s biggest superpowers — have passed laws granting their surveillance agencies virtually unfettered power to conduct bulk interception of communications across Europe and beyond, with limited to no effective oversight […]
Tesla’s Second Generation Autopilot Could Reduce Crash Rate by 90%, Says CEO Elon Musk
January 21st, 2017Whatever you think about autonomous drive technologies, my point with posting these stories is not to be a cheerleader one way or another. I just want to be sure everyone knows that this stuff is real and it is coming. Millions of drivers will lose their jobs, and these are not minimum wage, burger flipping […]
Making AI Systems That See The World As Humans Do
January 20th, 2017Via: PhysOrg: A Northwestern University team developed a new computational model that performs at human levels on a standard intelligence test. This work is an important step toward making artificial intelligence systems that see and understand the world as humans do. “The model performs in the 75th percentile for American adults, making it better than […]
F-16 and SU-27P in Mock Dogfight Over Area 51
January 17th, 2017The idiotic Daily Mail is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. In fact, there is nothing unusual about what was photographed. Assessing foreign military hardware is one of the normal things that happens at Area 51, and is nothing new. See, Foreign Technology Evaluation: During the Cold War, one of the missions […]
