Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Headband Could Help Brain Communicate with Computers
March 4th, 2014Via: Boston Globe: Computer scientist Robert Jacob and biomedical engineer Sergio Fantini are working on a headband to read brain activity, enabling a computer to determine whether the wearer is bored, fatigued, or sharp. In a tower full of air traffic controllers wearing headbands, the computer could automatically shift flight assignments, depending on which controllers […]
Dismantling Fukushima Will Require Robotic Technology That Has Not Been Invented Yet
March 2nd, 2014Via: IEEE: “At Fukushima you have wrecked infrastructure, three melted cores, and you have some core on the floor, ex-vessel,” Barrett says. Nothing like Fukushima, he declares, has ever happened before.
Britain: Perovskite Solar Panels
March 2nd, 2014Via: Guardian: Materials researchers in Oxford, led by Dr Henry Snaith, have recently shown that they can make simple perovskite solar cells with efficiencies pushing 20%. This is big news, because 20% makes them competitive with existing commercial silicon solar cells while being much cheaper to make in high volumes. They are also more suitable […]
World’s Largest Aircraft Unveiled; Can Stay Airborne for Weeks
March 2nd, 2014Via: Telegraph: The world’s largest aircraft which can stay airborne for up to three weeks and will be vital in delivering several tonnes of humanitarian aid as well as transporting heavy freight across the world, has been unveiled. The 300ft (91m) ship is part plane, airship and helicopter, and there are plans to eventually use […]
LAPD Spies on Millions
March 2nd, 2014Via: L.A. Weekly: Los Angeles and Southern California police, by contrast, are expanding their use of surveillance technology such as intelligent video analytics, digital biometric identification and military-pedigree software for analyzing and predicting crime. Information on the identity and movements of millions of Southern California residents is being collected and tracked. In fact, Los Angeles […]
Autonomous Drones Flock Like Birds
March 1st, 2014Via: Nature: A Hungarian team has created the first drones that can fly as a coordinated flock. The researchers watched as the ten autonomous robots took to the air in a field outside Budapest, zipping through the open sky, flying in formation or even following a leader, all without any central control. The aircraft, called […]
Yahoo Webcam Images from Millions of Users Intercepted by GCHQ
February 27th, 2014Via: Guardian: Britain’s surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the US National Security Agency, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal. GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 explicitly state that a surveillance program codenamed Optic Nerve collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats […]
Rolls-Royce Drone Ships
February 26th, 2014Via: Bloomberg: In an age of aerial drones and driver-less cars, Rolls-Royce (RR/) Holdings Plc is designing unmanned cargo ships. Rolls-Royce’s Blue Ocean development team has set up a virtual-reality prototype at its office in Alesund, Norway, that simulates 360-degree views from a vessel’s bridge. Eventually, the London-based manufacturer of engines and turbines says, captains […]
How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations
February 26th, 2014Via: The Intercept: Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To […]
Electronics Retailer Checks Customers’ Names Against U.S. Watch List
February 25th, 2014Via: EEV Blog: If your name happens to be fairly common like mine, then you may end up having your orders flagged and put on hold by Element 14, at least here in Australia. Because, well, their system sucks arse, and it seems like they are licking the arse of the United States government to […]
