Archive for October, 2016
Batteries May Trip ‘Death Spiral’ in $3.4 Trillion Credit Market
October 23rd, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Via: Bloomberg: Battery technologies starting to disrupt the electricity and automobile industries may also emerge as a trillion-dollar threat to credit markets, according to Fitch Ratings. A quarter of outstanding global corporate debt, or as much as $3.4 trillion, is linked to the utility- and […]
The Little-Known Company That Enables Worldwide Mass Surveillance
October 23rd, 2016Via: The Intercept: It was a powerful piece of technology created for an important customer. The Medusa system, named after the mythical Greek monster with snakes instead of hair, had one main purpose: to vacuum up vast quantities of internet data at an astonishing speed. The technology was designed by Endace, a little-known New Zealand […]
AT&T Announces Purchase of Time Warner for Nearly $86 Billion
October 22nd, 2016E-Corp! Via: BBC: The US telecoms giant AT&T has announced that it will buy entertainment group Time Warner for nearly $86bn (£70bn). The deal was agreed at a meeting of the two boards on Saturday but will still need to be approved by regulators. Correspondents say it is the biggest deal in the world this […]
Police Drones Zapping Suspects with Stun Guns: ‘The Public Is Going to Initially be Alarmed by This’
October 21st, 2016Via: Wall Street Journal: In a conference room away from the busy San Diego Convention Center floor where law-enforcement officials from around the world perused the latest police technology, a Taser employee showed some police leaders a drone, and discussed how different things could be attached to it, including a camera, a light and a […]
America, Land of Opportunity? Not for Young People
October 21st, 2016Via: McClatchy: The United States is supposed to be a land of opportunity where young people can expect their quality of life will be better than their parents’. But the U.S. isn’t even in the top 20 countries when it comes to opportunities for young people. The U.S. ranks 23 on a list of 183 […]
U.S. Warship Challenges China’s Claims in South China Sea
October 21st, 2016Via: Reuters: A U.S. navy destroyer sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Friday, drawing a warning from Chinese warships to leave the area. The U.S. action was the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters, U.S. officials […]
Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking
October 21st, 2016Via: ProPublica: When Google bought the advertising network DoubleClick in 2007, Google founder Sergey Brin said that privacy would be the company’s “number one priority when we contemplate new kinds of advertising products.” And, for nearly a decade, Google did in fact keep DoubleClick’s massive database of web-browsing records separate by default from the names […]
DDoS on Dyn’s DNS Infrastructure Cripples Access to Popular Websites
October 21st, 2016Update: Someone on Twitter Claims “Just a Dry Run” [???] Via: CBC: Could millions of connected cameras, thermostats and kids’ toys bring the internet to its knees? It’s beginning to look that way. On Friday, epic cyberattacks crippled a major internet firm, repeatedly disrupting the availability of popular websites across North America and Europe such […]
Nano-Spike Catalysts Convert Carbon Dioxide Directly Into Ethanol
October 20th, 2016Via: PhysOrg: In a new twist to waste-to-fuel technology, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an electrochemical process that uses tiny spikes of carbon and copper to turn carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into ethanol. Their finding, which involves nanofabrication and catalysis science, was serendipitous. “We discovered somewhat by […]
Tesla: Self-Driving Car Navigates Around Palo Alto, Drives Through Intersections, Finds Parking Spot
October 20th, 2016“Google’s cars drive around like that,” you might say. Yep, but you can’t buy one of those, and Google is nowhere near having a car for sale. My guess is that Tesla’s practice of iterating their AI from cars that actual customers are driving is causing their lead over everyone else to keep widening. Watching […]
