Archive for the 'Technology' Category
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.
Air Force proposes $3-Billion Plan to Vastly Expand Its Drone Program
December 14th, 2015Via: Los Angeles Times: The Air Force wants to vastly expand its drone program over the next five years by doubling the number of pilots and deploying them to bases in California and elsewhere to give commanders better intelligence and more firepower.
Disney’s ‘FaceDirector’ Software
December 14th, 2015Via: Engadget: The new tool out of Disney Research’s labs could turn an ingénue’s semi-decent attempt into a finely nuanced performance. This software called FaceDirector has the capability to merge together separate frames from different takes to create the perfect scene. It does that by analyzing both the actor’s face and audio cues to identify […]
LG Chem Quietly Surges in Battery Race
December 14th, 2015Via: Automotive News: Three years ago, LG Chem’s $303 million battery plant garnered unwanted attention when news reports revealed workers were watching movies and playing cards rather than building batteries. As the facility sat idle, LG Chem was shipping lithium ion batteries from South Korea to power General Motors’ Chevrolet Volt — an embarrassment since […]
Autonomous System Aborts Takeoff of Qatar Airways Airbus A350 Rolling Down Runway at Full Throttle
December 13th, 2015Via: Daily Mail: It was meant to celebrate an aircraft model’s first-ever journey from the US, but this Qatar Airways charter flight carrying journalists and staff didn’t go as planned. Nerve-wracking footage shows the moment the Airbus A350-900 XWB abandoned its takeoff attempt as it sped along a runway at New York’s JFK Airport and […]
