Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Is Your Job at Risk from Robot Labor? Check This Handy Interactive Chart
May 13th, 2014Via: Quartz: In the second machine age, robots will perform tasks once thought to require uniquely human abilities, like driving our taxis and filleting our fish. But not all jobs will be equally affected by automation. The interactive plot above attempts to sort out the differences. We compared three variables related to the American workforce: […]
Document Establishes NSA’s Involvement in COINTELPRO
May 13th, 2014Via: The Guardian: One document from the Snowden files, dated 3 October 2012, chillingly underscores the point. It revealed that the agency has been monitoring the online activities of individuals it believes express “radical” ideas and who have a “radicalising” influence on others. The memo discusses six individuals in particular, all Muslims, though it stresses […]
NSA Routinely Installs Backdoors in Computers and Networking Equipment Exported from the U.S.
May 13th, 2014Via: The Guardian: But while American companies were being warned away from supposedly untrustworthy Chinese routers, foreign organisations would have been well advised to beware of American-made ones. A June 2010 report from the head of the NSA’s Access and Target Development department is shockingly explicit. The NSA routinely receives – or intercepts – routers, […]
New Zealand: Big Brother Has to Sign Off on ISP Infrastructure Changes and Personnel
May 13th, 2014So it goes… Via: ITnews: Local and international telcos and network providers in New Zealand are now required to comply with strict and complex new communications interception and security legislation. … Known as the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act (TICSA), the new law requires network operators to register with the NZ Police. Similary, suppliers […]
Innovative Prosthetic Arm From Segway Inventor Cleared by U.S.
May 10th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: A prosthetic arm made by a company founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen was approved for sale by U.S. regulators, who called it the first such device able to respond to multiple simultaneous commands from a wearer’s brain. Electrodes attached to the arm detect muscle contractions close to the prosthesis, and a computer […]
Inside the Strange New World of DIY Brain Stimulation
May 9th, 2014Via: Wired: With easy access to the research, the equipment, and each other, self-experimenters aren’t consulting their doctors or waiting for scientific consensus. They’re zapping first and asking questions as they go.
Solar Wind Downdraft Towers
May 7th, 2014Via: Physorg: The tower that SWET has in mind is located in a hot dry area. The tower structure is a hollow cylinder reaching skyward into the dry atmosphere heated by the solar rays of the sun. The water introduced by the injection system near the top of the Tower evaporates and is absorbed by […]
Scientists Create 1st Living Organism From Artificial DNA
May 7th, 2014Via: U.S. News and World Report: Move over, Frankenstein! Your 21st-century counterpart has just been announced. In true sci-fi fashion, a team of researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in La Jolla, Calif., has created a brand-new bacteria based on a genetic structure found nowhere on Earth. According to lead researcher Floyd Romesberg, the […]
Eyes Over Compton, “We Basically Kept it Pretty Hush Hush”
May 6th, 2014Via: The Atlantic: This is the future if nothing is done to stop it. In a secret test of mass surveillance technology, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department sent a civilian aircraft* over Compton, California, capturing high-resolution video of everything that happened inside that 10-square-mile municipality. Compton residents weren’t told about the spying, which happened […]
Robots Are Caring for Elderly People in Europe
May 6th, 2014Via: Vice: Judging by recent surveys, most people seem to think that robots that are actually useful will lead to some sort of apocalyptic machine uprising. But look past the military bots and automated job-stealers, and one of the most obvious applications of a service robot is an entirely unthreatening task humans are increasingly failing […]
