Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Homeless Tech Bus Drivers Live in Cars
September 21st, 2015Via: NBC: Drivers of Silicon Valley’s tech bus shuttles might not earn enough pay to have a stable place to live in the Bay Area. San Francisco Chronicle reported that two Apple shuttle bus drivers live in their own vehicles, though one would only speak anonymously. “Living in a car is hard,” Scott Peebles, 53, […]
Apple’s Electric Car: 2019
September 21st, 2015Via: Wall Street Journal: Apple Inc. is accelerating efforts to build an electric car, designating it internally as a “committed project” and setting a target ship date for 2019, according to people familiar with the matter. The go-ahead came after the company spent more than a year investigating the feasibility of an Apple-branded car, including […]
Real Headline: “Marines Test Google’s Latest Military Robot”
September 21st, 2015Via: PC World: The latest version of a walking, quadruped battlefield robot from Boston Dynamics, the military robotics maker owned by Google X, was tested by U.S. Marines last week. Spot weighs about 70kgs, is electrically operated and walks on four hydraulically-actuated legs. It’s controlled via wireless by an operator who can be up to […]
Artificial Leaf Harnesses Sunlight for Efficient Fuel Production
September 20th, 2015Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — I like reading the artificial leaf news, even though there are always tall hurdles ahead of the technology becoming practical. In this iteration of the artificial leaf, for example, the system only works for about 40 hours. I wondered how much money was being spent […]
Flying Robots Replace Oil Roughnecks
September 20th, 2015Via: Bloomberg: Oil rig inspection is a dangerous business. Traditionally roughnecks dangled from a wire, in gale-force winds if needed, to manually log wear and tear on the girders. Assessments include giant chimneys — called flare stacks — that belch fire during million-dollar-a-day shutdowns. Increasingly the industry has found that swapping abseiling humans for small […]
Apple Meets California Officials to Discuss Self-Driving Car
September 19th, 2015Via: Guardian: Apple executives have discussed their plans for an “autonomous vehicle” with officials at California’s department of motor vehicles (DMV), the Guardian has learnt. According to documents obtained by the Guardian, Mike Maletic, a senior legal counsel at Apple, had an hour-long meeting on 17 August with the department’s self-driving car experts Bernard Soriano, […]
Cyborg Insects
September 19th, 2015Via: Vice: I asked Anthes why she thought the military was so keen to work with insects. “I’d imagine there are several reasons,” she said. “Firstly those creatures are simpler to work with, biologically speaking. It’s much easier to commandeer an insect’s nervous system than a dog’s or a human’s. But also, for the specific […]
Scientists Claim They Have Grown Human Sperm in the Lab
September 19th, 2015Via: Independent: Human sperm cells have been made in the laboratory for the first time by culturing immature cells taken from the testes of infertile men. The breakthrough promises to help young boys made sterile by cancer treatments and adult men who cannot make their own sperm, scientists have claimed. The sperm cells made in […]
American Airlines Flights Grounded Nationwide
September 17th, 2015Via: CBS: The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday that American Airlines has grounded flights nationwide due to computer issues. American Airlines sent out a tweet responding to customers, saying it was “working to resolve technical issues.”
Barbie Wants to Get to Know Your Child
September 17th, 2015I would assume that every utterance from children playing with the dolls will be archived. Check this out: The writers marked important questions with ‘‘flags,’’ and this enabled Hello Barbie’s most unnerving power: She could remember the answers and use them for conversation starters days or weeks later. ‘‘She should always know that you have […]
