Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Toyota Makes £600m Bet on Artificial Intelligence
November 8th, 2015Via: Wired UK: Toyota will invest more than £600m in artificial intelligence and robotics for its self-driving cars and robots. Akio Toyoda, the company’s president, announced the car manufacturer is launching a research company in Silicon Valley to develop AI and robotics for use in its cars. The Toyota Research Institute will, according to a […]
The Cyberthreat Under the Street
November 8th, 2015It’s a bit of a worry that a nearly point-by-point facsimile of my 2002 warning about this has just appeared in the New York Times… God damn conspiracy theorists! If the whole thing suddenly goes pop, just know that the feds knew about this at least as far back as the mid-1990s, when I was […]
MI5 Secretly Collected Phone Data for Decade
November 6th, 2015Via: BBC: MI5 has secretly been collecting vast amounts of data about UK phone calls to search for terrorist connections. The programme has been running for 10 years under a law described as “vague” by the government’s terror watchdog. It emerged as Home Secretary Theresa May unveiled a draft bill governing spying on communications by […]
UBCO: Dual Electric Drive Motor Bike
November 4th, 2015Wow! Farmers and special forces operators from around the world: Form a double line down in Tauranga. Via: UBCO: It has a powerful, lightweight ‘SuperX’ frame design that gives you bulletproof low-speed control for stock handling as well as rural and urban jobs. With a load capacity of up to 200kg, the 2×2 can transform […]
Avoid Humans
November 4th, 2015Har! Via: Avoid Humans: Sometimes, everybody needs a break from everybody. Enter Avoid Humans—a web-based app that combs data from Foursquare and Instagram check-ins, giving you the nearest places in your area with the least amount of humans. The app is divided into four categories-nightlife, food, coffee and refuge—and each location is color coded to […]
Details of UK Website Visits to Be Stored for Year
November 4th, 2015Via: BBC: The internet activity of everyone in Britain will have to be stored for a year by service providers, under new surveillance law plans. Police and intelligence officers will be able to see the names of sites people have visited without a warrant, Home Secretary Theresa May said. But there would be new safeguards […]
Philadelphia: Survey Finds Babies Routinely Given Smartphones
November 4th, 2015Via: Reuters: Many children under age five own their own smartphones and tablets, and they often use the devices without any supervision or help from their parents, a small U.S. study suggests. While the results – based on surveys of parents in 350 households in Philadelphia – aren’t nationally representative and the study didn’t measure […]
U.S. Army Tests Swarms of Consumer Grade Drones in Major Exercise
November 2nd, 2015Via: IT World: The U.S. Army has for the first time tested swarms of consumer drones during a major military training exercise and determined the low-cost technology is at a stage where it could be used offensively. Off-the-shelf drones have brought what was previously complex and expensive technology into the reach of consumers, and the […]
U.S. Announces Plans to Deal with EMP Threat
November 2nd, 2015In other news, Naval Academy Reinstates Celestial Navigation. Via: USA Today: Space weather, which can disrupt satellites, stifle communications networks and paralyze the electric power grid, is getting some special scrutiny from the Obama administration. The White House announced a new strategy Thursday to identify and respond to interstellar phenomena such as solar flares that […]
Washington: How a Group of Neighbors Created Their Own Internet Service
November 2nd, 2015Via: Ars Technica: When you live somewhere with slow and unreliable Internet access, it usually seems like there’s nothing to do but complain. And that’s exactly what residents of Orcas Island, one of the San Juan Islands in Washington state, were doing in late 2013. Faced with CenturyLink service that was slow and outage-prone, residents […]
