Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Lack of Experienced Pilots, Boneheaded FAA Policies and Over Reliance on Flight Automation Systems Will Cause More Plane Crashes
July 11th, 2013Via: Natural News: When flight 214 crashed last week at the San Francisco airport, killing two people and injuring dozens, many people were in a state of disbelief. How could a Boeing 777 — the “Titanic” of commercial airliners — be piloted so carelessly that the pilot seemingly flew it into the seawall and caused […]
Cameras to Monitor Emotional States of Students
July 1st, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review: Even a good teacher may not always be able to tell, at a glance, which students are quietly struggling and which need more of a challenge. Fortunately, laptops may soon come with enough emotional intelligence built in to do the job for them. A recent study from North Carolina State University […]
Foxconn to Speed Up ‘Robot Army’ Deployment
June 27th, 2013Via: IT World: Manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group is on track with its goal to a create a “million robot army”, and already has 20,000 robotic machines in its factories, said the company’s CEO Terry Gou on Wednesday. Workers’ wages in China are rising, and so the company’s research in robots and automation has to […]
FBI Has Started Using Surveillance Drones Inside U.S.
June 19th, 2013Via: Huffington Post: FBI Director Robert Mueller revealed Wednesday that the bureau uses drones to conduct surveillance on U.S. soil. Asked by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) if the FBI was following in the footsteps of the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in pursuing the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, […]
IRS’s Big Data Tracking
June 15th, 2013Via: MSN: The Internal Revenue Service is collecting a lot more than taxes this year — it’s also acquiring a huge volume of personal information on taxpayers’ digital activities, from eBay auctions to Facebook posts and, for the first time ever, credit card and e-payment transaction records, as it expands its search for tax cheats […]
On Technology Eliminating Jobs: ‘This Time It Might Be Different’
June 12th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review: Given his calm and reasoned academic demeanor, it is easy to miss just how provocative Erik Brynjolfsson’s contention really is. ÂBrynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year and a half that impressive advances in […]
Ava 500 Telepresence System
June 10th, 2013Via: TechWorld: Ava 500 is essentially a Cisco TelePresence EX60 personal video endpoint mounted on top of an iRobot mobile robotics platform, which can self-navigate busy environments like offices, manufacturing floors and laboratories without bumping into people or objects. The robot is controlled via an iPad interface. This means that the remote user can select […]
Robo-Raven
June 6th, 2013Via: Military.com: A robotic bird created by Army and University of Maryland researchers is tricking real flocks — and hawks — midair, making it a potential unsuspecting future war agent. Robo-Raven glides, soars and flaps like a real bird. Complete individual wing control allows for extreme aerobatics that no other mechanical bird has ever been […]
Soldier Pleads Guilty to Murdering 16 Afghan Civilians
June 6th, 2013In other news: The following provides excerpts from the testimony of individuals who told our research team that they had survived or witnessed drone strikes, or lost family members in strikes. Via: Reuters: A U.S. Army sergeant who killed 16 Afghan civilians in cold blood last year pleaded guilty on Wednesday to premeditated murder and […]
Germany Fears Revolution if Europe Scraps Welfare Model
May 31st, 2013This is a battle against the machine and it’s already lost. Via: Reuters: German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned on Tuesday that failure to win the battle against youth unemployment could tear Europe apart, and dropping the continent’s welfare model in favor of tougher U.S. standards would spark a revolution. Germany, along with France, Spain […]
