Archive for the 'Technology' Category
France-UAE Satellite Deal Shaky After U.S. Spy Tech Discovered Onboard
January 8th, 2014Via: Space War: The sale of two intelligence satellites to the UAE by France for nearly a billion dollars could go south after they were found to contain American technology designed to intercept data transmitted to the ground station. The equipment, costing 3.4 billion dirhams ($930 million), constitutes two high-resolution Pleiades-type Falcon Eye military intelligence […]
BMW Builds a Self-Driving Car — That Drifts
January 7th, 2014Via: Wired: BMW makes the Ultimate Driving Machine, and now it’s made the Ultimate Drifting Machine. Except it’s the code that’s in control. At CES, BMW is showing off a modified 2-Series Coupe and 6-Series Gran Coupe that can race around a track at the limits of adhesion, and slide around corners like a throttle-happy […]
Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton
January 7th, 2014Via: Wired: A new drone with the mammoth wingspan of a Boeing 757 is set to give the U.S. Navy some serious surveillance power. Northrop Grumman and the Navy say they’ve just completed the ninth flight trial of the Triton unmanned aircraft system (UAS), an improvement upon its predecessor in the Air Force, the Global […]
RAF Jets Fly with 3D Printed Parts
January 7th, 2014Via: BBC: RAF Tornado fighter jets have flown with parts made using 3D printing technology for the first time, defence company BAE Systems has said. The metal components were used in test flights from the firm’s airfield at Warton, Lancashire, late last month. The parts include protective covers for cockpit radios and guards for power […]
How Google Cracked House Number Identification in Street View
January 7th, 2014Via: MIT Technology Review: Google can identify and transcribe all the views it has of street numbers in France in less than an hour, thanks to a neural network that’s just as good as human operators. … But the task of spotting and identifying these numbers is hugely time-consuming. Google’s street view cameras have recorded […]
Augmented-Reality Contact Lenses to be Human-Ready at CES
January 4th, 2014Via: Cnet: Anyone who has ever dreamed up a sci-fi future in which neon interfaces float in front of us and information exists not on screens, but projected onto our eyes, is likely watching the blossoming wearable technology market with great anticipation. With its iOptik system, wearables startup Innovega has sighted in on that futuristic […]
U.S. Waived Laws to Keep F-35 on Track with Parts Made in China
January 4th, 2014Via: Reuters: The Pentagon repeatedly waived laws banning Chinese-built components on U.S. weapons in order to keep the $392 billion Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter program on track in 2012 and 2013, even as U.S. officials were voicing concern about China’s espionage and military buildup. According to Pentagon documents reviewed by Reuters, chief U.S. arms […]
Disneyland: MyMagic+ “Vacation Management System”
January 3rd, 2014Via: Time: Families planning trips to one of Disney’s theme parks can now get waterproof rubber wristbands embedded with computer chips in lieu of paper tickets. When scanned, the bands can act as a park entry ticket, a FastPass, a hotel room key and a credit card. The “Magic Bands” — which are currently optional […]
NSA Seeks to Build Quantum Computer That Could Crack Most Types of Encryption
January 2nd, 2014I’ve leaned toward believing that NSA already had this capability, but maybe not. Via: Washington Post: In room-size metal boxes, secure against electromagnetic leaks, the National Security Agency is racing to build a computer that could break nearly every kind of encryption used to protect banking, medical, business and government records around the world. According […]
Feds May Require Cars to Talk to Each Other to Avoid Crashes
January 2nd, 2014Via: ABC: Federal officials will decided in the “coming weeks” whether to require new cars to include smart technology that would alert drivers of a coming crash, even in vehicles that are two or three cars away. The vehicle-to-vehicle — or V2V — technology has undergone testing in recent years and has already been installed […]
