Archive for the 'Technology' Category
“Central Moscow GPS Anomaly”
October 26th, 2016Via: AP: Joggers, taxi drivers, players of Pokemon Go and senior Russian officials are seeking an explanation of why mobile phone apps that use GPS are malfunctioning in central Moscow. A programmer for Russian internet firm Yandex, Grigory Bakunov, said Thursday his research showed a system for blocking GPS was located inside the Kremlin, the […]
The Pentagon’s ‘Terminator Conundrum’
October 25th, 2016Almost unnoticed outside of defense circles… I’ve been posting about this on here since 2002. đ Via: New York Times: Almost unnoticed outside defense circles, the Pentagon has put artificial intelligence at the center of its strategy to maintain the United Statesâ position as the worldâs dominant military power. It is spending billions of dollars […]
Self Driving Truck Makes First Commercial Delivery
October 25th, 2016Via: New York Times: The futurists of Silicon Valley may not have seen this one coming: The first commercial delivery made by a self-driving truck was 2,000 cases of Budweiser beer. On Tuesday, Otto, the Uber-owned self-driving vehicle operation, announced the completion of its first commercial delivery, having delivered its beer load from Fort Collins, […]
Google Co-Founder’s Reported ‘Flying Car’ Spotted Hovering in Hollister
October 25th, 2016Via: Monteray Herald: In Hollister, population 40,000, the first rule about Zee.Aero is you donât talk about Zee.Aero. Related: Airbus Wants to Build a Self-Flying Taxi Called Vahana
China’s Plan to Organize Its Society Relies on ‘Big Data’ to Rate Everyone
October 24th, 2016Via: Washington Post: Imagine a world where an authoritarian government monitors everything you do, amasses huge amounts of data on almost every interaction you make, and awards you a single score that measures how âtrustworthyâ you are. In this world, anything from defaulting on a loan to criticizing the ruling party, from running a red […]
Batteries May Trip ‘Death Spiral’ in $3.4 Trillion Credit Market
October 23rd, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Via: Bloomberg: Battery technologies starting to disrupt the electricity and automobile industries may also emerge as a trillion-dollar threat to credit markets, according to Fitch Ratings. A quarter of outstanding global corporate debt, or as much as $3.4 trillion, is linked to the utility- and […]
The Little-Known Company That Enables Worldwide Mass Surveillance
October 23rd, 2016Via: The Intercept: It was a powerful piece of technology created for an important customer. The Medusa system, named after the mythical Greek monster with snakes instead of hair, had one main purpose: to vacuum up vast quantities of internet data at an astonishing speed. The technology was designed by Endace, a little-known New Zealand […]
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 companyâs ânumber one priority when we contemplate new kinds of advertising products.â And, for nearly a decade, Google did in fact keep DoubleClickâs 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 […]
