Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Google Barges: Places “Where People Can Learn About New Technology”
November 6th, 2013Via: TechCrunch: Google has issued a statement (finally?) about its months-long mystery barge project. The barges, which are anchored in both Portland, Maine and San Francisco, have been the topic of intense interest since multiple reports surfaced last month. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that the barges are ‘an interactive space’ to teach people about […]
iPads Banned from Cabinet Meetings Over Surveillance Fears
November 6th, 2013Oh yeah, China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan. *wink* In other news: NSA Can Access Data on All Smartphones Via: Telegraph: The securities services fear foreign intelligence agencies have developed the ability to turn mobile devices such as phones and tablets into bugs without the owner’s knowledge, allowing them to eavesdrop on confidential meetings. iPads were […]
Los Angeles: Citywide Gigabit Access for Homes and Businesses
November 5th, 2013People living in shipping containers with fiber optic links to the Metaverse? *chortle* Via: Arstechnica: Los Angeles is about to unleash one of the most ambitious city-led broadband projects to date, with the goal of bringing fiber to all of its 3.5 million residents and all businesses. Next month, the city plans to issue an […]
Ecosystems in 66-Foot-Tall Test Tubes
November 5th, 2013Via: Popular Science: The outdoors is a horribly inconsistent place to do science. That’s why many ecologists work in laboratories, where they can exactly replicate an experiment many times over, although with the understanding that their results may not fully reflect what would happen in nature. But on Lake Stechlin in Germany, researchers at the […]
Britain: Face-Scanning Screens That Can Determine Your Age and Gender
November 5th, 2013Via: Vice: Next time you absent-mindedly watch the ads as you’re waiting to pay for a tank of gas, they might be watching you back. Digital advertising company Amscreen (a division of Alan Sugar’s Amshold) has announced a deal with British supermarket giant Tesco to roll out its OptimEyes technology across their 450 petrol forecourts. […]
FBI Seeks Video Recognition Technology to Automatically ID Suspects
November 5th, 2013Via: Nextgov: The FBI is weighing the use of video recognition technology to quickly identify suspects, even if all the camera has captured is a perpetrator’s limp or fraying blue baseball cap. Think of it as automated police lineups for the YouTube generation. While investigators manually scoured video to identify the suspected Boston Marathon bombers, […]
Apple Opening Arizona Plant With 2,000 Workers
November 5th, 2013Via: Bloomberg: Apple Inc. (AAPL) said it’s opening a new plant in Mesa, Arizona, that will create 2,000 jobs to make components for its products, part of a push by the world’s most valuable company to boost manufacturing in the U.S. Apple struck a deal to pay $578 million to GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (GTAT) […]
It’s All E-Commerce Now
November 4th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review: “Omnichannel” is a buzzword that describes a survival strategy. Threatened by the growth of low-cost online merchants, traditional retailers are reacting by following customers onto the Internet. Macy’s does it as well as any. On its website, it installs 24 different tracking cookies on a visitor’s browser. On TV, it runs […]
Obamacare Open Thread
November 4th, 2013Do we need an Obamacare open thread? Here it is, just in case.
Three Guys Built a Better Healthcare.gov
November 3rd, 2013Via: The Atlantic Wire: The Affordable Health Care act rollout was an unmitigated disaster thanks in large part to a cluttered website that both didn’t work and was offensively ugly. Maybe things would not have gone so poorly if HealthCare.gov looked something like this. No one knows the resources that went into building HealthCare.gov, but […]
