Chinese Firm Halves Worker Costs by Hiring Army of Robots to Sort Out 200,000 Packages a Day
April 11th, 2017Via: South China Morning Post:
A viral video showing an army of little orange robots sorting out packages in a warehouse in eastern China is the latest example of how machines are increasingly taking over menial factory work on the mainland.
The behind-the-scenes footage of the self-charging robot army in a sorting centre of Chinese delivery powerhouse Shentong (STO) Express was shared on People’s Daily’s social media accounts on Sunday.
‘An Estimated $3 Trillion in Daily Commerce Flows Through COBOL Systems’
April 10th, 2017Via: Reuters:
The Common Business-Oriented Language was developed nearly 60 years ago and has been gradually replaced by newer, more versatile languages such as Java, C and Python. Although few universities still offer COBOL courses, the language remains crucial to businesses and institutions around the world.
In the United States, the financial sector, major corporations and parts of the federal government still largely rely on it because it underpins powerful systems that were built in the 70s or 80s and never fully replaced.
And here lies the problem: if something goes wrong, few people know how to fix it.
The stakes are especially high for the financial industry, where an estimated $3 trillion in daily commerce flows through COBOL systems. The language underpins deposit accounts, check-clearing services, card networks, ATMs, mortgage servicing, loan ledgers and other services.
The industry’s aggressive push into digital banking makes it even more important to solve the COBOL dilemma. Mobile apps and other new tools are written in modern languages that need to work seamlessly with old underlying systems.
Farmers Look For Ways To Circumvent Tractor Software Locks
April 10th, 2017Via: NPR:
A new tractor often costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, but one thing not included in that price is the right to repair it. That has put farmers on the front lines of a battle pitting consumers against the makers of all kinds of consumer goods, from tractors to refrigerators to smartphones.
Modern tractors, essentially, have two keys to make the engine work. One key starts the engine. But because today’s tractors are high-tech machines that can steer themselves by GPS, you also need a software key — to fix the programs that make a tractor run properly. And farmers don’t get that key.
“You’re paying for the metal but the electronic parts technically you don’t own it. They do,” says Kyle Schwarting, who plants and harvests fields in southeast Nebraska.
Study: Second Opinion from Doctor Results in Different Diagnosis 88% of Time
April 8th, 2017😯
Via: Mayo Clinic:
Many patients come to Mayo Clinic for a second opinion or diagnosis confirmation before treatment for a complex condition. In a new study, Mayo Clinic reports that as many as 88 percent of those patients go home with a new or refined diagnosis — changing their care plan and potentially their lives. Conversely, only 12 percent receive confirmation that the original diagnosis was complete and correct.
Donald Trump Warns That Attacking Syria Could Start World War III
April 8th, 2017
Via: The Dollar Vigilante:
U.S. Carrier Strike Group Sails Toward Korean Peninsula After North’s Missile Test
April 8th, 2017Via: Military.com:
The U.S. Navy’s Carl Vinson carrier strike group has been ordered to cancel planned port visits in Australia and move to the Western Pacific, just four days after the rogue state of North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile from its eastern coast.
Officials with U.S. Third Fleet announced Saturday night that the San Diego-based strike group, which just completed a four-day port visit in Singapore, will now sail north and “report on station” in the Western Pacific. Multiple outlets reported that the ships would be positioned off the Korean peninsula.
U.S. Envoy to UN Threatens Further Military Action in Syria
April 8th, 2017Via: france24:
The United States on Friday threatened to take further military action in Syria following its missile strikes on an air base in the war-wracked country in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack.
“The United States took a very measured step last night,” US Ambassador Nikki Haley told the UN Security Council.
“We are prepared to do more, but we hope it will not be necessary.”
The Security Council was meeting in an emergency session to discuss the US actions in Syria that Russia branded a “flagrant violation of international law and an act of aggression” against Syria.
U.S. Fires Missiles at Assad Airbase, Escalating Tensions with Russia
April 7th, 2017Well, Hillary supporters, maybe you’ll get that war with Russia anyway.
Via: Reuters:
The United States on Friday fired dozens of cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase from which it said a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched this week, an escalation of the U.S. military role in Syria that immediately raised tension with Russia.
Just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he had ordered the attack, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said the strike had seriously damaged ties between Washington and Moscow.
Two U.S. warships fired 59 cruise missiles from the eastern Mediterranean Sea at the Syrian airbase controlled by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad in response to a poison gas attack in a rebel-held area on Tuesday, U.S. officials said.
Putin, a staunch ally of Assad, regarded the U.S. action as “aggression against a sovereign nation” on a “made-up pretext” and a cynical attempt to distract the world from civilian deaths in Iraq, his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, was cited as saying by agencies.
It was the toughest direct U.S. action yet in Syria’s six-year-old civil war and leaves Trump facing his biggest foreign policy crisis since his Jan. 20 inauguration, raising the risk of confrontation with Russia and Iran, Assad’s two main military backers.
Android Devices Can be Fatally Hacked by Malicious Wi-Fi Networks, iOS Patched on Monday
April 6th, 2017Via: Ars Technica:
A broad array of Android phones are vulnerable to attacks that use booby-trapped Wi-Fi signals to achieve full device takeover, a researcher has demonstrated.
The vulnerability resides in a widely used Wi-Fi chipset manufactured by Broadcom and used in both iOS and Android devices. Apple patched the vulnerability with Monday’s release of iOS 10.3.1. “An attacker within range may be able to execute arbitrary code on the Wi-Fi chip,” Apple’s accompanying advisory warned. In a highly detailed blog post published Tuesday, the Google Project Zero researcher who discovered the flaw said it allowed the execution of malicious code on a fully updated 6P “by Wi-Fi proximity alone, requiring no user interaction.”
Google is in the process of releasing an update in its April security bulletin. The fix is available only to a select number of device models, and even then it can take two weeks or more to be available as an over-the-air update to those who are eligible. Company representatives didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment for this post.
Apple Calls Journalists to Explain That the Company Has Not Abandoned the Mac
April 6th, 2017Everything is great! Don’t worry. We love you. We’re sorry. Check back next year, mmmkay?
The picture at the link looks like an action shot for a Touch of Gray ad. *chortle*
Via: TechCrunch:
The Mac has an important long future at Apple. Apple cares deeply about the Mac. We have every intention to keep going and investing in the Mac. It’s important to us, it’s important to our customers — including Mac Pro users, all pro users, including Mac Pro. And if we’ve had a pause in upgrades and updates on that, we’re sorry for that, what happened with the Mac Pro, and we’re going to come out with something great to replace it. And that’s our intention. We care about our Pro users who use MacBook Pros, who use iMacs and who use Mac Pros, who use modular systems as well as all-in-one systems, who use the pro software we make. It’s all important to us and we’re invested in that and we see a long future with that stuff.
