Archive for March, 2016
Apple’s iCloud to Run on Google’s Cloud
March 16th, 2016Via: Business Insider: It’s been only four months since Google convinced enterprise queen Diane Greene to lead its fledgling cloud-computing business, but she’s already scored a second huge coup for Google: landing Apple as a customer which is not good news from Amazon. Apple has reportedly signed a contract worth between $400 million and $600 […]
Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis
March 16th, 2016Via: Bloomberg: Venezuela is shutting down for a week as the government struggles with a deepening electricity crisis. President Nicolas Maduro gave everyone an extra three days off work next week, extending the two-day Easter holiday, according to a statement in the Official Gazette published late Tuesday. Maduro had originally said over the weekend that […]
The $78 Trillion Pension Problem
March 16th, 2016Via: CNBC: Dreams of lengthy cruises and beach life may be just that, with 20 of the world’s biggest countries facing a pension shortfall worth $78 trillion, Citi said in a report sent on Wednesday. “Social security systems, national pension plans, private sector pensions, and individual retirement accounts are unfunded or underfunded across the globe,” […]
NSA Intercepts for Law Enforcement
March 16th, 2016I said it back in 2013 when we learned about parallel construction. It’s NSA’s infrastructure. The cat was completely out of the bag back then. Via: Privacy SOS: The wall separating “foreign” intelligence operations from domestic criminal investigations has finally, fully collapsed. The FBI now plans to act on a rule change initiated by the […]
$20,000 Honda Civic Comes with Self Drive Mode for Highways
March 16th, 2016Via: Fast Company: Honda is adding features to its $20,000 Honda Civic LX that will make the entry-level car able to drive itself down the highway, reports the Wall Street Journal. Drivers can take their hands off the wheel and their feet off the pedals when the car’s driving in highway conditions with clearly visible […]
AlphaGo Seals 4-1 Victory Over Go Grandmaster Lee Sedol
March 16th, 2016Via: Guardian: Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo program triumphed in its final game against South Korean Go grandmaster Lee Sedol to win the series 4-1, providing further evidence of the landmark achievement for an artificial intelligence program. Lee started Tuesday’s game strongly, taking advantage of an early mistake by AlphaGo. But in the end, Lee was unable […]
The New Mind Control
March 14th, 2016Don’t let this one slip down the page without clicking through! This piece doesn’t mention virtual reality, but VR is going to be an integral part of this, “unseen dictatorship.” It’s easy to pass off clunky RV tech demos as some sort of passing fad. Yep, I remember the 1990s too. But it’s different this […]
Putin: “The Main Part” of Russian Armed Forces in Syria Will Start to Withdraw
March 14th, 2016Via: Reuters: President Vladimir Putin announced out of the blue on Monday that “the main part” of Russian armed forces in Syria will start to withdraw, telling his diplomats to step up the push for peace as U.N.-mediated talks resumed on ending the five-year-old war. Syria rejected any suggestion of a rift with Moscow, saying […]
Mathematicians Discover Prime Conspiracy
March 14th, 2016Via: Quanta Magazine: Two mathematicians have uncovered a simple, previously unnoticed property of prime numbers — those numbers that are divisible only by 1 and themselves. Prime numbers, it seems, have decided preferences about the final digits of the primes that immediately follow them. Among the first billion prime numbers, for instance, a prime ending […]
Minecraft to Run Artificial Intelligence Experiments
March 14th, 2016Via: BBC: Minecraft is to become a testing ground for artificial intelligence experiments. Microsoft, owner of the popular video game, revealed that computer scientists and amateurs will be able to evaluate and develop AI software using its virtual landscapes from July. The company says Minecraft is more “sophisticated” than existing AI research simulations and cheaper […]
