Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
FBI Using Drones for Warrantless Surveillance Inside U.S.
July 28th, 2013Via: The Verge: Earlier this year, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) publicly revealed for the first time in a hearing that it has been using drones to conduct surveillance operations inside the country, a striking admission, given that domestic drone is a subject of intense debate and there’s still not a clear set […]
DARPA Hydra: Mothership That Deploys Both Submersible and Aerial Drones
July 24th, 2013Via: NBC: Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, are in the news constantly, but what about unmanned underwater vehicles? They could also be important in both war and peace, which is why the Defense Department’s research arm, DARPA, is looking into a mobile submarine base from which to launch drones. The project, still in the earliest […]
Leaked Report Shows High Civilian Death Toll from CIA Drone Strikes
July 23rd, 2013This only covers the period from 2006 to 2009. Via: Salon: A secret document obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveals for the first time the Pakistan government’s internal assessment of dozens of drone strikes, and shows scores of civilian casualties. The United States has consistently claimed only a tiny number of non-combatants have […]
U.S. Expanding Military Drone Surveillance Operations Around the World
July 21st, 2013Via: Washington Post: As the Obama administration dials back the number of drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, the U.S. military is shifting its huge fleet of unmanned aircraft to other hot spots around the world. This next phase of drone warfare is focused more on spying than killing and will extend the Pentagon’s […]
San Jose State Suspends Online Classes Project Udacity After As Many As 80% of Students Fail
July 21st, 2013Via: Los Angeles Times: San Jose State University is suspending a highly touted collaboration with online provider Udacity to offer low-cost, for-credit online courses after finding that more than half of the students failed to pass the classes, officials said Thursday. Preliminary results from a spring pilot project found student pass rates of 20% to […]
Google: Ultimately, “The Goal Is To Insert A Chip Inside Your Head”
July 20th, 2013Via: Independent: Ultimately, as Page and co-founder Sergey Brin have asserted, the goal is to insert a chip inside your head for the most effortless search engine imaginable. … In Building 43 of the Googleplex, Ben Gomes talks with barely concealed excitement about a “new epoch”. A Google fellow and the company’s Vice President of […]
And Now, ‘Smart Plates’: California May Issue Digital License Plates
July 19th, 2013Via: CBS: California may become the first state to issue digital license plates that can be registered electronically and record tolls. Privacy advocates are concerned the plates could become tracking devices for law enforcement. Instead of a metal license plate, the digital plate would be a computer screen, slightly larger than an iPad. Registering the […]
‘Robots to Revolutionize Farming’
July 16th, 2013Via: AP / Time: On a windy morning in California’s Salinas Valley, a tractor pulled a wheeled, metal contraption over rows of budding iceberg lettuce plants. Engineers from Silicon Valley tinkered with the software on a laptop to ensure the machine was eliminating the right leafy buds. The engineers were testing the Lettuce Bot, a […]
ATLAS Humanoid Robot
July 12th, 2013Via: DARPA / Boston Dynamics: Say hello to ATLAS, one of the most advanced humanoid robots ever built! ATLAS was developed for DARPA by Boston Dynamics. Software-focused teams from Tracks B and C of the DARPA Robotics Challenge will use the robot to compete in the first physical competition of the Challenge in December 2013 […]
U.S. Navy Makes History by Landing Unmanned Drone on Aircraft Carrier
July 11th, 2013This is what passes for industrial policy in the U.S. Air transportation companies would like nothing more than to replace human pilots with machines. This X-47B effort is essentially public funding toward that goal. Anyway, someone should Photoshop out the meatsacks on the deck of the aircraft carrier and replace them with T-1000s. Via: Guardian: […]
