Archive for the 'Technology' Category
NSA Secretly Expands Internet Spying at U.S. Border
June 4th, 2015Via: New York Times: Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international Internet traffic to search for evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to classified N.S.A. documents.
Leaked TISA Documents Reveal Privacy Threat
June 4th, 2015Via: Forbes: Under the draft provisions of the latest trade deal to be leaked by Wikileaks, countries could be barred from trying to control where their citizens’ personal data is held or whether it’s accessible from outside the country. … And the contents of TISA make interesting reading, particularly for anybody concerned about privacy. Under […]
Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em: Australian Electricity Retailers Selling Battery Systems to Customers with Solar
June 2nd, 2015In other news, Meridian CEO Mark Binns shits the bed. haha Here’s another one for you, Mark: New Zealand Solar Uptake Triples. Have a nice day. Via: Sydney Morning Herald: Snowy Hydro’s retail arm Red Energy, ActewAGL and Queensland’s Ergon Energy will trial a home battery system made by Panasonic in a bid to ensure […]
MIT Cheetah Robot Lands the Running Jump
May 29th, 2015Via: MIT:
Data Furnaces Arrive in Europe
May 28th, 2015Via: Ars Technica: Nerdalize is a small Dutch company that is trying to commercialise Microsoft’s data furnace idea. The first product is the eRadiator, which, given its size, probably contains two or three servers that pump out around 1000W of heat—probably just enough to heat a small room in winter. In an interview with the […]
Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS)
May 28th, 2015Via: Nature: Technologies have reached a point at which the deployment of such systems is — practically if not legally — feasible within years, not decades. The stakes are high: LAWS have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms. Autonomous weapons systems select and engage targets without human intervention; […]
Apple and Google Just Attended a Confidential Spy Summit in a Remote English Mansion
May 23rd, 2015Via: First Look: At an 18th-century mansion in England’s countryside last week, current and former spy chiefs from seven countries faced off with representatives from tech giants Apple and Google to discuss government surveillance in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s leaks. The three-day conference, which took place behind closed doors and under strict rules about […]
New ‘Deep Learning’ Technique Enables Robot Mastery of Skills Via Trial and Error
May 22nd, 2015I mainly posted this because of the Comedy Gold juxtaposition below. haha Via: UC Berkeley: The work is part of a new People and Robots Initiative at UC’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). The new multi-campus, multidisciplinary research initiative seeks to keep the dizzying advances in artificial intelligence, robotics […]
Teachers Using Pens and Paper in the Classroom “Not Fair” to Students, Microsoft Official Says
May 20th, 2015In other news, Microsoft Study Shows that Technology Is Shortening Attention Spans. Via: The Georgia Straight: Pens and paper have no place in the modern classroom. And chalkboards? They should be banished from our schools too. That’s what Lia De Cicco Remu, director of Partners in Learning at Microsoft Canada, told the Georgia Straight ahead […]
Amputees Control Bionic Legs with Their Thoughts
May 20th, 2015Via: Reuters: Amputees can control their bionic prosthetic limbs with their minds, thanks to tiny implanted myoelectric sensors (IMES) developed by Icelandic orthopedics company Ossur and surgically placed in a patient’s residual muscle tissue. Ossur implanted tiny sensors in the residual muscle tissue of two amputees that they say trigger movement in the prosthesis via […]
