Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Reporter Claims Computer Self Deleted Text While He Tried to Write Book About Snowden
February 22nd, 2014My first question would be: Was the system really offline? Was he using a computer with a wi-fi network adapter (pretty much any laptop made in the last decade)? If yes, then it’s probably safe to assume that he wasn’t actually offline. Whatever rootkit was running on the system could simply turn on the wi-fi […]
Tesla to Start Manufacturing Their Own Battery Packs
February 21st, 2014Via: MIT Technology Review: “[The Gigafactory] will allow us to achieve a major reduction in the cost of our battery packs and accelerate the pace of battery innovation. Working in partnership with our suppliers, we plan to integrate precursor material, cell, module and pack production into one facility. With this facility, we feel highly confident […]
Google’s Project Tango: Indoor 3D Mapping and Tracking
February 20th, 2014Because tracking you outside is so 1990s. It’s not enough for the Legion of Doom to be able to track your every move outside. It now wants to map your indoor world, in 3D, and where you are in it. NSA/NGA will love this. Coincidence: Tango: Tango (U.S.) NATO phonetic alphabet for the letter “T” […]
Inside DuckDuckGo, Google’s Tiniest, Fiercest Competitor
February 20th, 2014Via: Fast Company: “Every year, we’ve grown 200-500%,” Weinberg says. “The numbers keep getting bigger.” As of early February, DuckDuckGo was seeing more than 4 million search queries per day. One year ago, that number had just barely broken 1 million. Surprisingly, the sudden success didn’t send the site crashing down. Nor did it change […]
“Smart Cities”
February 20th, 2014Via: Fast Company: Tech giant Cisco thinks there’s something to all this talk of ”smart cities”–and that connecting roads or license plate readers to the Internet is going to be big business. In the latest installment of their ongoing expansion into the Internet of Things, Cisco recently announced an agreement with Swiss security firm AGT […]
Cambodia: Homemade Bamboo Trains
February 20th, 2014Via: YouTube: Cambodia has one rail line. It is not well built, not maintained, and generally unsafe. For that reason, Cambodia no longer operates heavy trains. The people, however, have created an inexpensive and lightweight system to travel safely on the rails. These bamboo trains are pushed by small gasoline engines, and roll on two […]
Brain Implant Lets One Monkey Control Another
February 20th, 2014Via: Live Science: In work inspired partly by the movie “Avatar,” one monkey could control the body of another monkey using thought alone by connecting the brain of the puppet-master monkey to the spine of the other through a prosthesis, researchers say. These findings could help lead to implants that help patients overcome paralysis, scientists […]
Chicago: Predictive Policing Experiments
February 20th, 2014Via: The Verge: When the Chicago Police Department sent one of its commanders to Robert McDaniel’s home last summer, the 22-year-old high school dropout was surprised. Though he lived in a neighborhood well-known for bloodshed on its streets, he hadn’t committed a crime or interacted with a police officer recently. And he didn’t have a […]
‘Star Wars’ at Sea: Navy Ready to Deploy Laser System This Summer
February 17th, 2014Via: AP: Some of the Navy’s futuristic weapons sound like something out of “Star Wars,” with lasers designed to shoot down aerial drones and electric guns that fire projectiles at hypersonic speeds. That future is now. The Navy plans to deploy its first laser on a ship later this year, and it intends to test […]
“A Robotic Wingman of Sorts”: Heavily Armed Drones May Accompany U.S. Fighter Pilots Into Combat
February 15th, 2014Via: U.S. Naval Institute: Could the U.S. Navy’s future Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) aircraft have an air-to-air role? The service’s director of air warfare Rear Adm. Mike Manazir posed that it could during a Dec. 20 interview with USNI News. Manazir contemplated the possibility that that the UCLASS, which is primarily being […]
