Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
7-Eleven Tests Cashierless Store At North Texas Headquarters
February 6th, 2020Via: CBS: A new 700-square foot 7-Eleven store has opened in Texas, but this one doesn’t have a human cashier. The pilot store, at 7-Eleven headquarters in Irving, uses a mixture of algorithms and predictive technology to separate individual customers and their purchases from others in the store. The concept location offers some of the […]
San Francisco: A Dystopian Nightmare of Addiction, Homelessness and Criminality
February 2nd, 2020They have been showing it to us for several decades in novels and on screens: Cyberpunk: High Tech, Low Life: Via: Daily Mail: ‘San Francisco has always had hobos but we’ve never seen anything like this. It’s become a vision of some kind of strange dystopian future,’ says Joel Kotkin, a widely respected professor in […]
And Now, Colorado Mystery Drones a Case of Mass Hysteria
January 30th, 2020Swamp gas, Venus, etc. Via: Vice: On January 13, the Colorado Department of Public Safety (CDPS) issued a statement about their investigation into the mysterious drone sightings in question. CDPS “confirmed no incidents involving criminal activity, nor have investigations substantiated reports of suspicious or illegal drone activity.” In other words, they found nothing. Of the […]
University of Missouri Tracking Students with Phone App
January 29th, 2020Get them ready for life in those lovely “smart” cities! Via: Kansas City Star: Officials say it’s for the students’ own good. … The phone app is called Spotter, developed by a former Mizzou basketball coach. It works using short-range phone sensors and campus-wide WiFi networks. The university can tell when a student crosses a […]
U.S. Navy Could Get Potent Airburst Rounds to Take Out Drones
January 24th, 2020Via: Military.com: Crews on Navy littoral combat ships could soon be armed with powerful rounds that can blast hard-to-hit drones out of the sky. Northrop Grumman, which produces modules for the LCS based on its mission, is eyeing a powerful precision airburst munition to combat drones targeting ships at sea. The round would be compatible […]
Key Volkswagen Exec Admits Full Self-Driving Cars ‘May Never Happen’
January 19th, 2020Via: The Drive: After years of sunny optimism and big promises, automakers are beginning to realize just how difficult it is to make a market-ready, full self-driving car. The CEO of Volkswagen’s autonomous driving division recently admitted that Level 5 autonomy—that’s full computer control of the vehicle with zero limitations—might actually never happen. Related: Automakers […]
Surveillance Plane Joins Intensifying Hunt For Mystery Drones Over Colorado And Nebraska
January 11th, 2020Via: The Drive: The War Zone was among the first to report back in late December 2019 that eyewitnesses throughout northeastern Colorado had begun seeing formations of large drones flying at night in complex grid-like patterns over rural areas and farmland. Since then, the sightings have multiplied and the drones have begun appearing in neighboring […]
Chinese Deepfake A.I. App
January 11th, 2020Hilariously, this runs on phones. In other news, I noticed that AMD just announced their 64-core Ryzen Threadripper CPU (the 3990X). Cost: $3,990. In other words, don’t believe your eyes, when it comes to digital sources. (Or ears.) Via: Sheila Allen:
Workplace Lockdown and Surveillance with Biometric Technologies
January 6th, 2020Via: Wall Street Journal: Plastic cards may soon give way to biometric systems, microchip implants, gait recognition and other technologies that aim to improve security, generate health data and monitor workers.
Samsung’s Upcoming AI Avatar Production System Partially Leaked
January 6th, 2020Via: Good Content Tech:
