Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Google Auto
August 2nd, 2015Via: Guardian: It was Google Auto LLC that applied for the international vehicle identification number (VIN) codes to identify each new self-driving car, just like any other production vehicle. Google Auto also liaised with America’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and organised emissions testing in California. To avoid onerous safety requirements and crash tests, […]
Facebook’s Solar-Powered Internet Plane Looks Like a Stealth Bomber
July 30th, 2015Pics at the link. Woh. Via: The Verge: Facebook’s plans to become a flying internet service provider for the developing world are coming to fruition. The company today introduced Aquila, a high-flying, long-endurance plane that will bring basic internet access to the developing world. A working model of the plane is now ready for testing, […]
Windows 10 Delivers Updates to Other Users on the Internet Via Peer-to-Peer by Default
July 30th, 2015Update: Windows 10 Default Privacy Settings: “Vague and Bordering on Scary” — By dumb luck, I just found a setting that indicates that Windows 10 delivers updates to other computers over the Internet via peer-to-peer networking. Not good if you’re like most people in New Zealand on metered Internet connections! Once I got over my […]
Robots: The Growing Threat to the Service Industry
July 30th, 2015Via: Value Walk: Soon McDonald’s and Burger King Worldwide Inc (NYSE:BKW) will have no need for anyone to run a burger kiosk other than a 20-something with mad technology skills; everything from order entry to burger preparation and delivery will be automated (and faster and without the asinine errors that plague this low-education industry today). […]
Intel and Micron Announce New Memory Technology, 3D XPoint
July 30th, 2015Via: Intel: The technology is up to 1,000 times faster and has up to 1,000 times greater endurance than NAND, and is 10 times denser than conventional memory. … Following more than a decade of research and development, 3D XPoint technology was built from the ground up to address the need for non-volatile, high-performance, high-endurance […]
Kentucky Man Arrested for Shooting Down Drone
July 30th, 2015Via: WDRB: A Hillview man has been arrested after he shot down a drone flying over his property — but he’s not making any apologies for it. It happened Sunday night at a home on Earlywood Way, just south of the intersection between Smith Lane and Mud Lane in Bullitt County, according to an arrest […]
Japan Fires the World’s Most Powerful Laser (for a Trillionth of a Second)
July 29th, 2015Via: Popular Science: Researchers at Osaka University are claiming to have fired the most powerful laser in the world. The 2-petawatt (two quadrillion watt) pulse lasted just one picosecond (a trillionth of a second). For a rough comparison, in 2013, a 50 kilowatt (50,000 watt) laser shot down a drone two kilometers away. Osaka’s mega-powerful […]
Amazon Provides New Details on Plan for Drone Air Corridors
July 28th, 2015Via: The Verge: The company laid out its vision for a multi-tiered superhighway in the sky, one in which all drones flying above 200 feet would have the ability to communicate with — and ideally sense and avoid — other aircraft. It’s an attempt to put an end to the Wild West atmosphere that has […]
Deep Neural Nets Can Now Recognize Your Face in Thermal Images
July 28th, 2015Via: MIT Technology Review: One problem with infrared surveillance videos or infrared CCTV images is that it is hard to recognize the people in them. Faces look different in the infrared and matching these images to their normal appearance is a significant unsolved challenge. The problem is that the link between the way people look […]
Autonomous Weapons: An Open Letter from AI & Robotics Researchers
July 27th, 2015Via: Future of Life Institute: Autonomous weapons select and engage targets without human intervention. They might include, for example, armed quadcopters that can search for and eliminate people meeting certain pre-defined criteria, but do not include cruise missiles or remotely piloted drones for which humans make all targeting decisions. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has reached […]
