Archive for the 'Technology' Category
CIA Admits to Improperly Hacking Senate Computers
July 31st, 2014Via: National Journal: In a sharp and sudden reversal, the CIA is acknowledging it improperly tapped into the computers of Senate staffers who were reviewing the intelligence agency’s Bush-era torture practices.
Panasonic and Tesla Sign Agreement for the Gigafactory
July 31st, 2014Via: Tesla Motors: Panasonic Corporation and Tesla Motors, Inc. have signed an agreement that lays out their cooperation on the construction of a large-scale battery manufacturing plant in the United States, known as the Gigafactory. According to the agreement, Tesla will prepare, provide and manage the land, buildings and utilities. Panasonic will manufacture and supply […]
Lawyers Blocked Demo on De-Anonymising Tor
July 30th, 2014Via: Guardian: The Tor network promises online privacy by routing users’ internet traffic through a number of servers – or layers – while encrypting data. The surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden is known to have used Tor to maintain his privacy, while the documents he leaked showed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) struggled to […]
UK to Allow Driverless Cars on Public Roads in January
July 30th, 2014Via: BBC: The UK government has announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads from January next year. It also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time. In addition, ministers ordered a review of the UK’s road regulations to provide […]
Robot with Broken Leg Learns to Walk Again in 2 Minutes
July 30th, 2014Via: Medium: When animals lose a limb, they learn to hobble remarkably quickly. And yet when robots damage a leg, they become completely incapacitated. That’s not so much of a problem for robots that are confined to factories where help is always on hand. But robots have been evolving rapidly and are now on the […]
Why Hoboken is Throwing Away All of its Student Laptops
July 30th, 2014In other news: Finns Beat U.S. with Low-Tech Take on School. Via: WNYC: Inside Hoboken’s combined junior-senior high school is a storage closet. Behind the locked door, some mothballed laptop computers are strewn among brown cardboard boxes. Others are stacked one atop another. Dozens more are stored on mobile computer carts, many of them on […]
Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager to Clients: EMP Greatest Risk to Society
July 30th, 2014Yeah, and there were only two seasons of Jericho: Via: CNBC: Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer has issued an unusual warning for investors, calling the threat of a widespread blackout from an electromagnetic surge the “most significant danger” in the world. Called an “electromagnetic pulse” or EMP, the events can occur naturally from solar […]
Russia Offers $111,000 to Crack Tor
July 28th, 2014Via: Ars Technica: The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) has offered a 3.9 million ruble (approximately $111,000) contract for technology that can identify the users of Tor, the encrypted anonymizing network used by Internet users seeking to hide their activities from monitoring by law enforcement, government censors, and others. In a notice on the […]
The French City of Toulouse Saved 1 Million Euro by Migrating Desktops to LibreOffice
July 28th, 2014Via: European Commission: Toulouse in south-west France is one of the successes of the free software movement, having replaced Microsoft solutions with LibreOffice. Free software and open source in general is now an established part of the city’s comprehensive digital policy, and the open model promotes economic development and employment in the region.
Government Surveillance and Internet Search Behavior
July 27th, 2014Via: SSRN: This paper uses data from Google Trends on search terms from before and after the surveillance revelations of June 2013 to analyze whether Google users’ search behavior shifted as a result of an exogenous shock in information about how closely their internet searches were being monitored by the U.S. government. We use data […]
