Trump Pulls U.S. Out of TPP
January 24th, 2017Via: Reuters:
U.S. President Donald Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal on Monday, distancing America from its Asian allies, as China’s influence in the region rises.
Fulfilling a campaign pledge to end American involvement in the 2015 pact, Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office pulling the United States out of the 12-nation TPP.
This Company Has Built a Profile on Every American Adult
January 24th, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
Every move you make. Every click you take. Every game you play. Every place you stay. They’ll be watching you.
Forget telephoto lenses and fake mustaches: The most important tools for America’s 35,000 private investigators are database subscription services. For more than a decade, professional snoops have been able to search troves of public and nonpublic records—known addresses, DMV records, photographs of a person’s car—and condense them into comprehensive reports costing as little as $10. Now they can combine that information with the kinds of things marketers know about you, such as which politicians you donate to, what you spend on groceries, and whether it’s weird that you ate in last night, to create a portrait of your life and predict your behavior.
IDI, a year-old company in the so-called data-fusion business, is the first to centralize and weaponize all that information for its customers. The Boca Raton, Fla., company’s database service, idiCORE, combines public records with purchasing, demographic, and behavioral data. Chief Executive Officer Derek Dubner says the system isn’t waiting for requests from clients—it’s already built a profile on every American adult, including young people who wouldn’t be swept up in conventional databases, which only index transactions. “We have data on that 21-year-old who’s living at home with mom and dad,” he says.
South Korea Plans Near-Supersonic, ‘Hyper-Tube Train’
January 24th, 2017Via: South China Morning Post:
South Korea is seeking to develop a train-like public transport concept that is almost as fast as the speed of sound reaching 1,000km/h, the Korea Railroad Research Institute (KRRI) said Tuesday.
The state-run institute will join forces with other research groups and Hanyang University to build the near-supersonic “train”, which would be able to travel from Seoul to Busan in half an hour.
“We hope to create an ultra-fast train, which will travel inside a state-of-the-art low-pressure tube at lightning speeds, in the not-too-distant future,” said a KRRI official.
“To that end, we will cooperate with associated institutes as well as Hanyang University to check the viability of various related technologies called the hyper-tube format over the next three years.”
…
The innovative hyper-tube, or hyper-loop, technology, which transports people in floating pods inside tubes under a partial vacuum, was first proposed by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk.
When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the U.S.
January 24th, 2017In, 8 Men as Rich as Half the World, I joked, “Get yourself a side hustle and a podshare.”
And now…
Via: Bloomberg:
The vast majority of Uber’s full-time drivers return home to their beds at the end of a day’s work. But all over the country, there are many who don’t. These drivers live near, but not in, expensive cities where they can tap higher fares, ferrying wealthier, white-collar workers to their jobs and out to dinner—but where they can’t make enough money to get by, even with longer hours. To maximize their time, drivers find supermarket parking lots, airports and hostels where they catch several hours of sleep after taking riders home from bars and before starting the morning commute.
…
Uber drivers across the country swap tips for finding sleeping spots, like: which stores have the most forgiving security guards and where to find free Wi-Fi. In Chicago, drivers call the 7-11 at the intersection of Wrightwood & North Lincoln Avenues the “Uber Terminal.” In Columbus, Ohio, drivers prefer the Walmart off the Jack Nicklaus Freeway. In Queens, New York, drivers are known to frequent the 7-Eleven off JFK Expressway. Drivers on the online forum Uberpeople.net joke that there is money to be made in a motel chain serving the large number of Uber drivers sleeping in their cars in New Jersey.
Not The Onion: Cambridge Scientists Consider Fake News ‘Vaccine’
January 24th, 2017Via: BBC:
The appearance of fake news on websites and social media has inspired scientists to develop a “vaccine” to immunise people against the problem.
A University of Cambridge study devised psychological tools to target fact distortion.
Researchers suggest “pre-emptively exposing” readers to a small “dose” of the misinformation can help organisations cancel out bogus claims.
Stories on the US election and Syria are among those to have caused concern.
“Misinformation can be sticky, spreading and replicating like a virus,” said the University of Cambridge study’s lead author Dr Sander van der Linden.
“The idea is to provide a cognitive repertoire that helps build up resistance to misinformation, so the next time people come across it they are less susceptible.”
Silicon Valley Billionaires Prepping for Collapse Caused by Machines Eliminating Jobs
January 23rd, 2017Mmm hmm.
Via: Recode:
One of the more peculiar hobbies popular among the Silicon Valley elite is an obsession with preparing to survive for end times; its adherents are commonly called “preppers.”
It’s the topic of an essay in the New Yorker this week, “Survival of the Richest” by Evan Osnos, which delves into why tech billionaires are particularly attracted to the idea.
According to Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, the prepper movement among tech-made billionaires is largely inspired by fear that artificial intelligence will one day displace so many jobs that there will be a revolt against those behind the technology.
Southern California Edison 80 MWh Tesla Powerpack Station Online
January 23rd, 2017Via: Electrek:
After announcing the project back in September, we have now learned that Tesla and Southern California Edison (SCE) have completed the massive 80 MWh energy storage station using Tesla’s new Powerpack 2 at the Mira Loma substation.
There are a few bigger projects in various phases of development, but it looks like this one is the biggest energy storage project in the world using lithium-ion batteries currently in operation.
While Tesla and SCE haven’t officially launched the new substation yet, sources familiar with the new Powerpack installation told Electrek that it was completed a few weeks back – late December – and brought online so that the electric utility can start using it to manage peak demand.
Western Union Admits to Aiding Wire Fraud, to Pay $586 Million
January 23rd, 2017Via: Reuters:
Western Union Co, the world’s biggest money-transfer company, agreed to pay $586 million and admitted to turning a blind eye as criminals used its service for money laundering and fraud, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.
Western Union, which has over half a million locations in more than 200 countries, admitted “to aiding and abetting wire fraud” by allowing scammers to process transactions, even when the company realized its agents were helping scammers avoid detection, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission said in statements.
With the help of Western Union agents, Chinese immigrants used the service to send hundreds of millions of dollars to pay human smugglers, wiring the money in smaller increments to avoid federal reporting requirements, U.S. authorities said.
Fraudsters offering fake prizes and job opportunities swindled tens of thousands of U.S. consumers, giving Western Union agents a cut in return for processing the payments, authorities said.
Trump Tells Business Leaders He Wants to Cut Regulations by 75% or ‘Maybe More’
January 23rd, 2017Via: CNBC:
President Donald Trump on Monday told a range of business leaders that he believes his administration can cut regulations by 75 percent or “maybe more.”
At the White House with 10 senior executives, he repeated his campaign pledges to roll back rules on companies, arguing that they have “gotten out of control.” A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request to comment on which rules Trump will specifically target or how the 75 percent was calculated.
Facial Recognition to Replace Passports in Security Overhaul at Australian Airports
January 23rd, 2017Via: Guardian:
A radical overhaul of security at Australia’s international airports is the first step towards the government’s goal of automating 90% of air traveller processing by 2020.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection will start moving towards a “contactless” system for arrivals this year, Fairfax reported on Sunday – the most ambitious stage of the Seamless Traveller initiative announced in 2015.
Incoming paper passenger cards would be abolished and manned stations would be replaced by electronic stations and automatic triage.
Passengers would not need to show their passports, instead being processed by biometric recognition of their faces, irises and/or fingerprints.
Under the new system, the existing SmartGates that scan passports electronically – introduced less than 10 years ago – would be retired.
Research Credit: Jb
