Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Police Drones Zapping Suspects with Stun Guns: ‘The Public Is Going to Initially be Alarmed by This’
October 21st, 2016Via: Wall Street Journal: In a conference room away from the busy San Diego Convention Center floor where law-enforcement officials from around the world perused the latest police technology, a Taser employee showed some police leaders a drone, and discussed how different things could be attached to it, including a camera, a light and a […]
Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking
October 21st, 2016Via: ProPublica: When Google bought the advertising network DoubleClick in 2007, Google founder Sergey Brin said that privacy would be the company’s “number one priority when we contemplate new kinds of advertising products.” And, for nearly a decade, Google did in fact keep DoubleClick’s massive database of web-browsing records separate by default from the names […]
DDoS on Dyn’s DNS Infrastructure Cripples Access to Popular Websites
October 21st, 2016Update: Someone on Twitter Claims “Just a Dry Run” [???] Via: CBC: Could millions of connected cameras, thermostats and kids’ toys bring the internet to its knees? It’s beginning to look that way. On Friday, epic cyberattacks crippled a major internet firm, repeatedly disrupting the availability of popular websites across North America and Europe such […]
Nano-Spike Catalysts Convert Carbon Dioxide Directly Into Ethanol
October 20th, 2016Via: PhysOrg: In a new twist to waste-to-fuel technology, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an electrochemical process that uses tiny spikes of carbon and copper to turn carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into ethanol. Their finding, which involves nanofabrication and catalysis science, was serendipitous. “We discovered somewhat by […]
Tesla: Self-Driving Car Navigates Around Palo Alto, Drives Through Intersections, Finds Parking Spot
October 20th, 2016“Google’s cars drive around like that,” you might say. Yep, but you can’t buy one of those, and Google is nowhere near having a car for sale. My guess is that Tesla’s practice of iterating their AI from cars that actual customers are driving is causing their lead over everyone else to keep widening. Watching […]
NSA Contractor’s Alleged Theft ‘Breathtaking’ in Scope
October 20th, 2016Via: Baltimore Sun: The alleged theft of classified documents by a former NSA contractor from Glen Burnie was “breathtaking” in its scope, federal authorities said in a court filing Thursday, including information produced over two decades that detailed some of the country’s most sensitive intelligence operations. … Authorities seized some 50,000 gigabytes of digital information […]
Watch DARPA’s Robot Copilot Fly a Cessna
October 20th, 2016Via: Popular Mechanics: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—DARPA, that is—is currently working on a robotic copilot called the Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS). The project is designed to decrease the number of airmen needed to fly military missions as a method of reducing cost. Aurora Flight Sciences recently tested the robotic arm by […]
Microsoft Speech Recognition Achieves ‘Human Parity’
October 20th, 2016Via: Newsweek: A “historic” landmark in artificial intelligence research has been reached by Microsoft, which has announced a new speech recognition technology that it claims is the first to be on par with humans. Details of the software were published this week in a paper titled ‘Achieving Human Parity in Conversational Speech Recognition,’ authored by […]
All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Hardware Capable of Level 4 Autonomy
October 19th, 2016A validation period of unspecified length will be required before the fully autonomous features become available. Here’s a sentence in the press release that’s worth noting: Before activating the features enabled by the new hardware, we will further calibrate the system using millions of miles of real-world driving to ensure significant improvements to safety and […]
UK Security Agencies Unlawfully Collected Data for 17 Years, Court Rules
October 18th, 2016Via: Guardian: British security agencies have secretly and unlawfully collected massive volumes of confidential personal data, including financial information, on citizens for more than a decade, senior judges have ruled. The investigatory powers tribunal, which is the only court that hears complaints against MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, said the security services operated an illegal regime […]
