Archive for the 'Technology' Category
U.S. Military’s Top Secret X-37B Shuttle ‘Disappears’ for Two Weeks, Changes Orbit
August 25th, 2010Realtime track of X-37B. Via: news.com.au: AMATEUR astronomers are enjoying a cat-and-mouse game with the US military in keeping track of its secret space plane, the X-37B. The X-37B was launched in April amid much publicity, but scant detail about its true use. Built by Boeing’s Phantom Works division, the X-37B program was originally headed […]
Filling Free Minutes with Video Games
August 25th, 2010Has it really come to this? I have to ask: Via: New York Times: “People think they’re refreshing themselves, but they’re fatiguing themselves,” said Marc Berman, a University of Michigan neuroscientist. Regardless, there is now a whole industry of mobile software developers competing to help people scratch the entertainment itch. Flurry, a company that tracks […]
Pre Crime: Software Could Influence Sentencing Recommendations and Bail Amounts
August 24th, 2010Via: ABC News: New crime prediction software being rolled out in the nation’s capital should reduce not only the murder rate, but the rate of many other crimes as well. Developed by Richard Berk, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the software is already used in Baltimore and Philadelphia to predict which individuals on […]
Steve Jobs Is Watching You: Apple Seeking to Patent Spyware
August 24th, 2010Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation: It looks like Apple, Inc., is exploring a new business opportunity: spyware and what we’re calling “traitorware.” While users were celebrating the new jailbreaking and unlocking exemptions, Apple was quietly preparing to apply for a patent on technology that, among other things, would allow Apple to identify and punish users who […]
Malware Implicated in Fatal Spanair Plane Crash
August 24th, 2010Update: Maybe Not Via: ZDnet: The actual cause is far more prosaic: the pilots missed a crucial item on their checklist and took off with the flaps in the wrong position: The investigation has determined that the takeoff was attempted while in an inappropriate and unapproved configuration, since the flaps and slats were fully retracted. […]
India: Police Arrest Researcher Who Showed E-Voting Machines Are Not Secure
August 24th, 2010Via: Freedom to Tinker: About four months ago, Ed Felten blogged about a research paper in which Hari Prasad, Rop Gonggrijp, and I detailed serious security flaws in India’s electronic voting machines. Indian election authorities have repeatedly claimed that the machines are “tamperproof,” but we demonstrated important vulnerabilities by studying a machine provided by an […]
Japanese Firm Builds Small Machine that Converts Plastic Back Into Oil
August 23rd, 2010If there’s electricity around… I know! How about converting U.S. aircraft carriers into massive trash barges to clean up the Pacific Trash Vortex. Those aircraft carriers run on nuclear power so there should be plenty of juice on board for turning that stuff back into oil. Just a bit more comedy on Cryptogon this morning… […]
Germany to Roll Out ID cards with Embedded RFID; They Will Also Be Used for Establishing Identity Online
August 23rd, 2010Via: International Business Times: The production of the RFID chips, an integral element of the new generation of German identity cards, has started after the government gave a 10 year contract to the chipmaker NXP in the Netherlands. Citizens will receive the mandatory new ID cards from the first of November. The new ID card […]
Raytheon’s Directed Energy Pain Weapon Mounted from Ceiling in California Prison
August 23rd, 2010Here’s another one for your bulging Land-O-The-Free file folder. Via: The Signal: The reporters standing in front of me in line shouted in agony and crumpled in pain as the laser cannon zapped them. With each agonizing shriek I heard, my time in front of the laser cannon grew closer until finally I stepped onto […]
Frederick Forsyth Claims NSA Wrecked Wife’s Computer by Remote
August 22nd, 2010I’d like to know more about what happened to her computer. Via: BBC: Frederick Forsyth, bestselling author of thrillers like The Day of the Jackal and The Dogs of War, was in the West African state of Guinea-Bissau last year when the president was assassinated. His presence there, he now believes, led suspicious US intelligence […]
