Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Humanoid Robot Mahru Mimics a Person’s Movements
April 29th, 2010Via: IEEE: And Now: Japan Plans to Send Humanoid to the Moon by 2015
We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint
April 27th, 2010Via: New York Times: Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti. “When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,” […]
Professor Tim Bell: Computer Science Unplugged
April 27th, 2010Tim Bell, a University of Canterbury Professor of Computer Science, developed a series of materials for teaching computer science concepts to children, “Through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around.” He calls the curriculum Computer Science Unplugged. He spoke about Computer Science Unplugged on Radio New Zealand’s Nine […]
Samsung Issues 3-D TV Health Warning: If You Start to Feel Dizzy, Stop Watching; With Children, Watch Out for Lightheadedness and Involuntary Movements Like Eye or Muscle Twitching, as Well as Cramps and Nausea
April 26th, 2010This is right out of some Sci-Fi dystopia. The zombie drones will be entertained, programmed and socialized by screens that require warnings and disclosures, like pharmaceutical packaging inserts. Many of the zombie drones will be so stupid, dazzled and confused that they subject their own zombie dronelings to these technologies as well. Who needs horror […]
Blizzard Makes Over One Million Dollars Per Hour Selling Celestial Steed Video Game Horses
April 25th, 2010I’ll see your Farmville and raise you a Celestial Steed. Via: Dvorak: Blizzard has had unprecedented success with virtual item sales on the release of the Celestial Steed – a special in-game mount for World of Warcraft that costs the princely sum of $25, €20 or £17. According to WOW.com (via GamesIndustry.biz), a seven-hour queue […]
Google: Biggest Wardriver of Them All?
April 25th, 2010Via: Register: Google’s roving Street View spycam may blur your face, but it’s got your number. The Street View service is under fire in Germany for scanning private WLAN networks, and recording users’ unique Mac (Media Access Control) addresses, as the car trundles along. Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Peter Schaar says he’s “horrified” […]
DARPA Tested Hypersonic Glider Related to Quick-Response Global Strike System, and Then Claims to Have Lost Contact with It
April 24th, 2010There has been a lot of coverage of the launch of the X-37b, but as the right hand was waving at us, did you notice what the left hand was up to? The same day, the U.S. launched a Minotaur rocket that reportedly carried a Hypersonic Test Vehicle, which is a test platform for the […]
College Students Struggle to Go Without Media for 24 Hours
April 24th, 2010What could possibly go wrong? Via: Reuters: Crackberry is no joke. American college students are hooked on cellphones, social media and the Internet and showing symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addictions, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Maryland who asked 200 students to give up all media for one full […]
Building an Artificial America in a Supercomputer: Synthetic Citizens to Help Social Scientists
April 23rd, 2010I found a one paragraph version of this information linked from Technofascism Blog and I went looking for more. The full text from the 2008 IEEE piece is below. Knowing what we know about the surveillance data that’s being collected, I see no reason why the “simulation” couldn’t be setup to run on real data, […]
Facebook Steps Up Lobbying, Deepens Ties with Intelligence Agencies, FTC
April 23rd, 2010Here’s my (one sentence) guess about what this is actually about: Facebook is a CIA cutout that’s frantically lobbying for privacy legislation to remain lax so that it can continue to run its various intelligence operations on the platform. Via: Venture Beat: Facebook has been gradually boosting its profile in Washington D.C. over the past […]
