Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Why Elon Musk’s Batteries Scare the Hell Out of the Electric Company
December 9th, 2014Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. Via: Bloomberg: At a sagebrush-strewn industrial park outside of Reno, Nevada, bulldozers are clearing dirt for Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA)’s battery factory, projected to be the world’s largest. Tesla’s founder, Elon Musk, sees the $5 billion facility as a key step toward making electric cars more […]
The Vending Machine Of The Future Is Here, And It Knows Who You Are
December 9th, 2014I haven’t bought anything from a vending machine since 2005. Then again, I haven’t been to a town with traffic lights in nearly two years. In any event, here’s one for your bulging Not-The-Onion file folder. Via: Telegraph: The Luce X2 Touch TV vending machine, which was debuted to industry professionals in Hertfordshire in October, […]
Mesosphere Data Center OS
December 9th, 2014Via: TechCrunch: Besides the funding though, the bigger news was the announcement of their first data center operating system (DCOS). This is a new kind of operating system that operates on the scale of the entire data center, which means instead of controlling a single machine, the operating system sits on top of the data […]
Give NSA Unlimited Access to Digital Data, Says Federal Judge
December 8th, 2014Via: Computerworld: The U.S. National Security Agency should have an unlimited ability to collect digital information in the name of protecting the country against terrorism and other threats, an influential federal judge said during a debate on privacy. “I think privacy is actually overvalued,” Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the […]
The World Cracks Down on the Internet
December 6th, 2014Via: The New Yorker: On Thursday, Freedom House published its fifth annual report on Internet freedom around the world. As in years past, China is again near the bottom of the rankings, which include sixty-five countries. Only Syria and Iran got worse scores, while Iceland and Estonia fared the best. (The report was funded partly […]
Operation Auroragold: How the NSA Hacks Cellphone Networks Worldwide
December 6th, 2014Via: First Look: According to documents contained in the archive of material provided to The Intercept by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the NSA has spied on hundreds of companies and organizations internationally, including in countries closely allied to the United States, in an effort to find security weaknesses in cellphone technology that it can exploit for […]
Enphase Says Solar + Solar Market “Infinite,” Ahead of Australia Battery Pilot
December 5th, 2014Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in NZ. Via: RenewEconomy: When the world’s biggest supplier of solar inverters (sometimes described as the “brains” of solar PV systems) sets up camp in Australia, it’s probably a development worth noting. California-based “solar-tech” company Enphase opened offices in Sydney and Melbourne around 18 months ago, and since then, […]
Discarded Laptop Batteries Keep the Lights On
December 4th, 2014Via: MIT Technology Review: Many of the estimated 50 million lithium-ion laptop batteries discarded every year could provide electricity storage sufficient to light homes in poor countries, researchers at IBM say. In work being aired this week at a conference in San Jose, researchers at IBM Research India in Bangalore found that at least 70 […]
Google’s Intelligence Designer
December 3rd, 2014Via: MIT Technology Review: But Hassabis sounds more excited when he talks about going beyond just tweaking the algorithms behind today’s products. He dreams of creating “AI scientists” that could do things like generate and test new hypotheses about disease in the lab. When prodded, he also says that DeepMind’s software could also be useful […]
Stephen Hawking Warns Artificial Intelligence Could End Mankind
December 2nd, 2014Via: BBC: Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain’s pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence. He told the BBC:”The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” His warning came in response to a question about a revamp of the […]
