Google’s Project Loon Internet Balloons to Circle Earth
October 28th, 2015Via: BBC:
Google believes it is on course to have enough internet-beaming balloons in the stratosphere to form a ring over part of the world next year.
It told the BBC the move would let it trial a continuous data service to people living below the balloons’ path.
The declaration coincides with the announcement that three of Indonesia’s mobile networks intend to start testing Project Loon’s transmissions next year.
EU Countries Won’t Be Able to Opt Out of Genetically-Modified Food
October 28th, 2015Wow.
Via: The Journal:
EU LAWMAKERS HAVE rejected a hard-won compromise which would have allowed member states to decide whether or not to import Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) for use in food and animal feed.
The European Parliament voted 557 to 75 against on a law which took the European Commission years to negotiate amid deep suspicions about the possible health and safety implications of GMO products.
The outcome, however, turned on a matter of principle – allowing member states to ban GMO products would mean erecting barriers within the EU’s most cherished achievement, its single market of more than 500 million people.
…
…19 of the 28 member states had asked to keep GMOs out of their territory, creating a complicated patchwork even within member states themselves.
Yamaha Shows Motobot Motorcycle-Riding Humanoid Robot
October 28th, 2015Motobot by Yamaha.
Via: Gizmag:
Yamaha produced somewhat of a surprise at the Tokyo Motor Show today when it showed a motorcycle-riding robot. Unlike most two-wheeled debutants, Yamaha’s new Motobot isn’t starting out on a small capacity motorcycle, but release images show the humanoid robot riding Yamaha’s most sporting motorcycle, the 1000cc R1M.
Inside the Pentagon’s Effort to Build a Killer Robot
October 28th, 2015Via: Time:
The defense program DARPA is working to create an artificial brain—but what will it mean for humanity if it succeeds?
…
I am headed to the laboratory of Dr. Garrett T. Kenyon, whose program falls under the rubric of synthetic cognition, an attempt to build an artificial brain.
Roboticists define artificial brains as man-made machines designed to be as intelligent, self-aware and creative as humans. No such machine yet exists, but Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) scientists like Dr. Kenyon believe that, given the rapid advances in DARPA technologies, one day soon they will. There are two technologies that play key roles in advancing artificial intelligence, and they are computing, which involves machines, and neuroscience, which involves the human brain.
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DARPA is not primarily in the business of helping soldiers heal; that is the job of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. DARPA’s job is to “create and prevent strategic surprise.” DARPA prepares vast weapons systems of the future. So what are the classified brain programs really for?
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The technologies DARPA is pursuing in its brain and prosthetics programs have dual use in DARPA’s efforts to engineer hunter-killer robots, or lethal autonomous weapons systems. Coupled with the quest for artificial intelligence, all this might explain why DARPA is so focused on looking inside people’s brains.
U.S. Back to Combat in Iraq AND Syria
October 28th, 2015“This is combat and things are complicated,” Carter said.
No shit.
With the Russian imposed no-fly-zone over Syria… How’s this going to work?
Without mushroom clouds, I hope.
Via: NBC:
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday that the U.S. will begin “direct action on the ground” against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria, aiming to intensify pressure on the militants as progress against them remains elusive.
“We won’t hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL, or conducting such missions directly whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground,” Carter said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee, using an alternative name for the militant group.
Carter pointed to last week’s rescue operation with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq to free hostages held by ISIS.
Related: Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, U.S. Commando Killed in ISIS Raid, Ran to Gunfight
Carter and Pentagon officials initially refused to characterize the rescue operation as U.S. boots on the ground. However, Carter said last week that the military expects “more raids of this kind” and that the rescue mission “represents a continuation of our advise and assist mission.”
This may mean some American soldiers “will be in harm’s way, no question about it,” Carter said last week.
After months of denying that U.S. troops would be in any combat role in Iraq, Carter late last week in a response to a question posed by NBC News, also acknowledged that the situation U.S. soldiers found themselves in during the raid in Hawija was combat.
“This is combat and things are complicated,” Carter said.
Northrop Grumman Wins Long Range Strike Bomber Contract
October 27th, 2015Via: Washington Post:
Northrop Grumman on Tuesday won the Pentagon contract to build a fleet of stealthy planes known as the Long Range Strike Bomber, a new generation of aircraft designed to reach deep into enemy territory.
Northrop beat out a team of Boeing and Lockheed Martin in the high-stakes competition for a project likely to be one of the Pentagon’s most significant over the next decade.
In announcing the award, valued at nearly $60 billion, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said the program represents a “technological leap” that will allow the United States to “remain dominant.”
Bill Would Give Legal Protection to Firms that Share Data with Government
October 27th, 2015Via: Washington Post:
The Senate on Tuesday passed a cybersecurity bill that would give companies legal immunity for sharing data with the federal government, over the protests of some lawmakers and consumer advocates who say that the legislation does not adequately protect Americans’ privacy.
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, must now be reconciled with legislation passed earlier this year by the House.
The Obama administration and lawmakers in both parties have been seeking for years to enact information-sharing legislation, and it now seems likely to become law.
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But privacy activists argue that the bill lacks robust privacy protections. They expressed concerns with provisions that allow the Department of Homeland Security to share information gathered in the program with other government agencies, such as the FBI or the National Security Agency. Critics say that effectively turns the legislation into a backdoor surveillance bill that benefits the intelligence community.
U.S. Weighs Special Forces in Syria, Helicopters in Iraq
October 27th, 2015Via: Reuters:
The United States is considering sending a small number of special operations forces to Syria and attack helicopters to Iraq as it weighs options to build momentum in the battle against Islamic State, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
Shocker: Court Chooses to Ignore Overwhelming Evidence of NSA’s Mass Internet Spying
October 27th, 2015Via: ACLU:
A federal district court yesterday dismissed Wikimedia v. NSA, a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of a broad group of educational, legal, human rights, and media organizations whose communications are swept up by the NSA’s unprecedented Internet dragnet.
Our lawsuit concerns the NSA’s “upstream” surveillance, which involves the mass interception and searching of Americans’ international Internet communications. The court held that our clients lacked “standing” to bring suit, because they had not plausibly alleged that their communications were being monitored by the NSA. That’s just plain wrong.
The court’s opinion relies heavily on the Supreme Court’s decision in a previous ACLU lawsuit, Amnesty v. Clapper, a challenge to warrantless surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. In February 2013, the Supreme Court dismissed that case on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not prove that they had communicated with the NSA’s targets.
But as we explained in court, our current challenge to the NSA’s warrantless spying is very different than the last one. Among other reasons, Clapper was decided prior to the Snowden revelations and extensive government disclosures about upstream surveillance. These revelations fundamentally changed the equation. Since Clapper, the public has learned that the NSA is not surveilling only its targets — it is instead surveilling virtually everyone, looking for information about those targets.
Standardized Testing Mess in U.S. Public Schools
October 27th, 2015Via: Washington Post:
The number of standardized tests U.S. public school students take has exploded in the past decade, with most schools requiring too many tests of dubious value, according to the first comprehensive survey of the nation’s largest districts.
A typical student takes 112 mandated standardized tests between pre-kindergarten classes and 12th grade, a new Council of the Great City Schools study found. By contrast, most countries that outperform the United States on international exams test students three times during their school careers.
