Archive for the 'Technology' Category
HTTP 451
December 23rd, 2015New HTTP status code. Nope, this isn’t a joke. It was approved by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) on 18 December 2015. Via: Wikipedia: In computer networking, HTTP 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons is an error status code of the HTTP protocol to be displayed when the user requests an illegal resource, such as […]
China: Sesame Credit
December 23rd, 2015Via: Extra Credits: China has gamified being an obedient citizen with the creation of Sesame Credit. The game links to your social network and gives you a score for doing things that the government approves of, but it also reduces that score for doing things the government disapproves of. Even your friends’ scores affect your […]
Google Pairs With Ford To Build Self-Driving Cars
December 22nd, 2015Via: Yahoo Autos: Google and Ford will create a joint venture to build self-driving vehicles with Google’s technology, a huge step by both companies toward a new business of automated ride sharing, Yahoo Autos has learned. According to three sources familiar with the plans, the partnership is set to be announced by Ford at the […]
SpaceX Has Successfully Launched and Landed a Falcon 9 Rocket
December 22nd, 2015Via: Reuters: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Monday with a payload of communications satellites before the reusable main-stage booster turned around, soared back to Cape Canaveral and landed safely near its launch pad in a dramatic spaceflight first. The successful mission, capped by delivery of all 11 satellites to orbit […]
VW to Introduce All-Electric, Long-Range Microbus in 2017
December 22nd, 2015310 mile range! That’s going to be a huge and expensive battery. Awesome, though. Via: Adventure Journal: Can Volkswagen rebuild the trust that was lost over its emissions-cheating scandal? Time will tell. Maybe in the short term, distraction is good enough, and the new model that VW is set to reveal at the Consumer Electronics […]
Probable Government Backdoors Found on Juniper Firewalls
December 19th, 2015Via: Wired: On Thursday, tech giant Juniper Networks revealed in a startling announcement that it had found “unauthorized” code embedded in an operating system running on some of its firewalls. The code, which appears to have been in multiple versions of the company’s ScreenOS software going back to at least August 2012, would have allowed […]
The Secret Surveillance Catalogue
December 18th, 2015Via: The Intercept: Concerned about the militarization of law enforcement, a source within the intelligence community has provided The Intercept with a secret, internal U.S. government catalogue of dozens of cellphone surveillance devices used by the military and by intelligence agencies. Some of the devices are already in use by federal law enforcement and local […]
Guy Builds Self Driving Car in His Garage with Commodity Computer Gear and Linux
December 16th, 2015Via: Bloomberg: Hotz’s approach isn’t simply a low-cost knockoff of existing autonomous vehicle technology. He says he’s come up with discoveries—most of which he refuses to disclose in detail—that improve how the AI software interprets data coming in from the cameras. “We’ve figured out how to phrase the driving problem in ways compatible with deep […]
The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers
December 14th, 2015Via: The Atlantic: The race to bring driverless cars to the masses is only just beginning, but already it is a fight for the ages. The competition is fierce, secretive, and elite. It pits Apple against Google against Tesla against Uber: all titans of Silicon Valley, in many ways as enigmatic as they are revered. […]
OpenAI Hopes to Prevent Superintelligence Doom
December 14th, 2015Via: Medium: Essentially, OpenAI is a research lab meant to counteract large corporations who may gain too much power by owning super-intelligence systems devoted to profits, as well as governments which may use AI to gain power and even oppress their citizenry.
