Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Amazon to Begin Testing Same-Day Delivery Drones in Cambridge
November 13th, 2014Via: Guardian: Amazon is planning to test drones in Cambridge, England, as the battle to offer consumers same-day deliveries heats up. The US company announced with considerable fanfare late last year that it was considering using drones as a way of dramatically reducing the time it takes to deliver orders to customers. At the time […]
Son of Stuxnet
November 13th, 2014Via: Firstlook: As he drove to work, he tried to wrap his mind around what he’d just seen, and couldn’t believe the Stuxnet gang was still active. After all the media attention and finger-pointing at Israel and the United States, he thought for sure the attackers would have laid low for a while to let […]
“An Autonomous Weapons Arms Race” Is Underway
November 11th, 2014Via: New York Times: On a bright fall day last year off the coast of Southern California, an Air Force B-1 bomber launched an experimental missile that may herald the future of warfare. Initially, pilots aboard the plane directed the missile, but halfway to its destination it severed communication with its operators. Alone, without human […]
SpaceX Working on Micro-Satellites for Internet Access
November 11th, 2014Via: PCWorld: SpaceX is working on a network of micro-satellites that will be used to provide Internet access, according to the company’s founder and CEO Elon Musk. “SpaceX is still in the early stages of developing advanced micro-satellites operating in large formations,” Musk wrote in a message on Twitter on Monday. “Announcement in 2 to […]
Malls Fill Vacant Stores With Server Rooms
November 3rd, 2014Via: Wall Street Journal: The Internet is moving to a shopping center near you. In Fort Wayne, Ind., a vacated Target store is about to be home to rows of computer servers, network routers and Ethernet cables courtesy of a local data-center operator. In Jackson, Miss., a former McRae’s department store will get the same […]
Flesh-and-Blood Advisers Face Threats from Robots
November 3rd, 2014Via: Reuters: Fidelity and Charles Schwab will be offering automated financial advice that’s low-cost or even free, pushing other advisers to be tech-savvy to compete. Last month, both Charles Schwab Corp and Fidelity Investments unveiled so-called “robo” advice programs that offer free or very cheap algorithm-driven portfolio management to investors. More Teen With Terminal Cancer […]
Brain Decoder Can Eavesdrop on Your Inner Voice
October 30th, 2014Via: New Scientist: TALKING to yourself used to be a strictly private pastime. That’s no longer the case – researchers have eavesdropped on our internal monologue for the first time. The achievement is a step towards helping people who cannot physically speak communicate with the outside world. “If you’re reading text in a newspaper or […]
Google’s Secretive DeepMind Start-Up Unveils A “Neural Turing Machine”
October 30th, 2014Via: MIT Technology Review: DeepMind has built a neural network that can access an external memory like a conventional Turing machine. The result is a computer that mimics the short-term memory of the human brain. Related: “With Artificial Intelligence, We Are Summoning the Demon”
Verizon Launching Tech News Site that Bans Stories on U.S. Spying
October 29th, 2014Via: The Daily Dot: Verizon is getting into the news business. What could go wrong? The most-valuable, second-richest telecommunications company in the world is bankrolling a technology news site called SugarString.com. The publication, which is now hiring its first full-time editors and reporters, is meant to rival major tech websites like Wired and the Verge […]
Verizon Wireless Injects Identifiers that Link Its Users to Web Requests
October 29th, 2014Via: Ars Technica: Cellular communications provider Verizon Wireless is adding cookie-like tokens to Web requests traveling over its network. These tokens are being used to build a detailed picture of users’ interests and to help clients tailor advertisements, according to researchers and Verizon’s own documentation. The profiling, part of Verizon’s Precision Market Insights division, kicked […]
