Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Hate To Break It To You, But Your Car Likely Has A Black Box ‘Spying’ On You Already
April 19th, 2012Via: Forbes: The big news in the automotive privacy world this week is that Congress is on the verge of passing a transportation bill that will make “big brother” black boxes mandatory in all cars. … But the truth of the matter is that most Americans already have black boxes in their cars. They’ve been […]
New Research Could Mean Cellphones That Can See Through Walls
April 19th, 2012Via: University of Texas at Dallas: Comic book hero superpowers may be one step closer to reality after the latest technological feats made by researchers at UT Dallas. They have designed an imager chip that could turn mobile phones into devices that can see through walls, wood, plastics, paper and other objects. The team’s research […]
Homeland Security’s ‘Pre-Crime’ Screening Will Never Work
April 18th, 2012Via: The Atlantic: Chances are, you’ll snag the wrong people, and when you do, how can you tell? How do you clear suspects of crimes that haven’t happened? Pre-crime prevention is a terrible idea. Here is a quiz for you. Is predicting crime before it happens: (a) something out of Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report; […]
Top U.S. Colleges to Offer Free Classes Online
April 18th, 2012Since MIT did it with Open Courseware years ago, I suspected that the point of the “free education” offerings was to create a pool of relatively skilled workers in some of the poorest countries in the world. You know, places with open sewers where people sleep on dirt floors… and where lots of these people […]
3D Printer Creates Drugs to Order
April 18th, 2012I can see it now: The Pirate Bay: Better Living Through Chemistry. Via: University of Glasgow: A new 3D printing process developed at the University of Glasgow could revolutionise the way scientists, doctors and even the general public create chemical products. Professor Lee Cronin, Gardiner Chair of Chemistry at the University, believes his research could […]
Wal-Mart Nominates Google Vice President to Board
April 17th, 2012Via: AP: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Monday that it nominated Google Inc. Vice President Marissa Mayer to its board of directors, a move that the discount retailer says will help it sell more products through mobile devices. Mayer, 36, is vice president of Google’s “local and maps” division, which means she oversees products and software […]
Companies Pass IT Staff Emails Through Monitoring Software Designed to Spot ‘The Enemy Within’
April 16th, 2012Mmmkay? Via: IT World: The Wall Street Journal recently published an article on how IT departments are coping these days with the biggest threat to data security — namely, employees in the IT department. That the “enemy within” is the biggest threat to an enterprise is nothing new, but buried in the article was something […]
Google’s Sergey Brin: Web Freedom Faces Greatest Threat Ever
April 16th, 2012You know that we’re in deep shit when Sergey Brin sounds like he’s been reading Cryptogon. Via: Guardian: The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. In an interview with the Guardian, Brin warned […]
Dual-Focus Contact Lens Prototypes Ordered by Pentagon
April 15th, 2012Via: BBC: The Pentagon has put in an order for prototype contact lenses that give users a much wider field of vision. The lenses are designed to be paired with compact heads up display (HUD) units – glasses that allow images to be projected onto their lenses. Much bulkier HUDs are already deployed by the […]
London Data Center Readies Staff ‘Sleeping Pods’ for Olympics
April 12th, 2012So now it’s sleeping capsules in data centers. Wow. You may or may not know what a data canter sounds like. If not, here’s a one minute introduction. Hopefully, those cozy sleeping capsules come with hearing protection. I wonder what IT people will be willing to tolerate in another six years? Via: Data Center Knowledge: […]
