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 countries based on 18 indicators that measure progress for youth ages 15 to 29. All of the top nine countries are in Europe, with Japan rounding out the top 10.
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 said.
The Chinese Defense Ministry called the move “illegal” and “provocative,” saying that two Chinese warships had warned the U.S. destroyer to leave.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Decatur challenged “excessive maritime claims” near the Paracel Islands, among a string of islets, reefs and shoals over which China has territorial disputes with its neighbors, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The latest U.S. patrol, first reported by Reuters, is expected to anger Beijing and could further escalate tensions over the South China Sea. The destroyer sailed within waters claimed by China, close to but not within the 12-nautical-mile territorial limits of the islands, the officials said.
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 and other personally identifiable information Google has collected from Gmail and its other login accounts.
But this summer, Google quietly erased that last privacy line in the sand – literally crossing out the lines in its privacy policy that promised to keep the two pots of data separate by default. In its place, Google substituted new language that says browsing habits “may be” combined with what the company learns from the use Gmail and other tools.
The change is enabled by default for new Google accounts. Existing users were prompted to opt-in to the change this summer.
The practical result of the change is that the DoubleClick ads that follow people around on the web may now be customized to them based on your name and other information Google knows about you. It also means that Google could now, if it wished to, build a complete portrait of a user by name, based on everything they write in email, every website they visit and the searches they conduct.
The move is a sea change for Google and a further blow to the online ad industry’s longstanding contention that web tracking is mostly anonymous. In recent years, Facebook, offline data brokers and others have increasingly sought to combine their troves of web tracking data with people’s real names. But until this summer, Google held the line.
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 as Twitter, Netflix and PayPal.
The hacker group claiming responsibility says that the day’s antics were just a dry run and that it has its sights set on a much bigger target.
And the attackers now have a secret weapon in the increasing array of internet-enabled household devices they can subvert and use to wreak havoc.
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Update: DDoS Affecting Cryptogon’s Host
I’m noticing access to Cryptogon coming and going today. Bluehost is on Twitter saying they’re doing everything they can to keep the lights on, so to speak. If you aren’t able to reach Cryptogon, just try again later… Assuming that whoever is behind this isn’t just dialing in a larger attack for later…
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Via: Reuters:
Cyber attacks targeting a little known internet infrastructure company, Dyn, disrupted access to dozens of websites on Friday, preventing some users from accessing PayPal, Twitter and Spotify.
Dyn, whose customers include some of the world’s most widely visited websites, said it did not know who was responsible for the outages that began in the Eastern United States, and then spread to other parts of the country and overseas.
The outages were intermittent, making it difficult to identify all the victims. But technology news site Gizmodo named some five dozen sites that were affected by the attack. They included CNN, HBO Now, Mashable, the New York Times, People.com, the Wall Street Journal and Yelp.
Dyn said attacks were coming from tens of millions of Internet-connected devices — such as web cams, printers and thermostats — infected with malicious software that turns them into “bots” that can be used in massive distributed denial of service attacks.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security last week issued a warning about this powerful new approach, noting it was concerned about the potential for new attacks after code for malware used in these attacks was published on the internet.
Dyn said late on Friday that it was fighting the third major wave of attacks, which were being launched from locations spread across the globe, making them harder to fight.
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 accident that this material worked,” said ORNL’s Adam Rondinone, lead author of the team’s study published in ChemistrySelect. “We were trying to study the first step of a proposed reaction when we realized that the catalyst was doing the entire reaction on its own.”
The team used a catalyst made of carbon, copper and nitrogen and applied voltage to trigger a complicated chemical reaction that essentially reverses the combustion process. With the help of the nanotechnology-based catalyst which contains multiple reaction sites, the solution of carbon dioxide dissolved in water turned into ethanol with a yield of 63 percent. Typically, this type of electrochemical reaction results in a mix of several different products in small amounts.
“We’re taking carbon dioxide, a waste product of combustion, and we’re pushing that combustion reaction backwards with very high selectivity to a useful fuel,” Rondinone said. “Ethanol was a surprise—it’s extremely difficult to go straight from carbon dioxide to ethanol with a single catalyst.”
Research Credit: dale
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 the Tesla car below look for an available parking space and then park itself—that was a sort of oh shit moment for me. That felt like a significant milestone had been crossed.
I personally thought the last 20 to 100 meters of the journey wasn’t going to be solved for another several years…
Wrong!
Via: Electrek:
Tesla released a video demonstration of a Model X equipped with its latest self-driving sensor suite, which is going into Tesla’s vehicles right now, and using the most advanced version of the software, which will be pushed to owners gradually throughout the coming year.
The demo shows the Model X self-driving around Palo Alto, near Tesla’s headquarters.
There are parts of the video on the highway which might look just like the Model X is on the current Autopilot, but once the SUV is on the streets of Palo Alto, it becomes clear that the vehicle is powered by something else.
You can watch the car navigate through intersections and take exits. For the grand finale, the “driver”, who is actually just a passenger but in the driver’s seat for legal purposes, exits the vehicle at Tesla’s HQ and the Model X tries to find its own parking space…
…
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that “when searching for parking, the car reads the signs to see if it is allowed to park there, which is why it skipped the disabled spot.”
When you have to get back to your car, of course, Tesla will not make you try to find it. You can tap ‘Summon’, like the current feature in ‘Tesla Autopilot 1’, but with the new hardware suite Musk says that “it will eventually find you even if you are on the other side of the country” instead of the 39 feet the first generation Autopilot can travel.
NSA Contractor’s Alleged Theft ‘Breathtaking’ in Scope
October 20th, 2016Via: Baltimore Sun:
The alleged theft of classified documents by a former NSA contractor from Glen Burnie was “breathtaking” in its scope, federal authorities said in a court filing Thursday, including information produced over two decades that detailed some of the country’s most sensitive intelligence operations.
…
Authorities seized some 50,000 gigabytes of digital information from Martin’s home and car, which they raided in late August. Authorities have produced no evidence that Martin shared the information he took with anyone, but the volume of data involved potentially dwarfs the amount that Edward Snowden, another agency contractor, shared with news organizations.
Prosecutors said Martin began stealing material when he first obtained a security clearance in 1996 — when Snowden was in middle school — and continued until he was arrested.
Watch DARPA’s Robot Copilot Fly a Cessna
October 20th, 2016Via: Popular Mechanics:
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—DARPA, that is—is currently working on a robotic copilot called the Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS). The project is designed to decrease the number of airmen needed to fly military missions as a method of reducing cost. Aurora Flight Sciences recently tested the robotic arm by flying with it in a Cessna, which you can see in the video below.
Research Credit: RH
Microsoft Speech Recognition Achieves ‘Human Parity’
October 20th, 2016Via: Newsweek:
A “historic” landmark in artificial intelligence research has been reached by Microsoft, which has announced a new speech recognition technology that it claims is the first to be on par with humans.
Details of the software were published this week in a paper titled ‘Achieving Human Parity in Conversational Speech Recognition,’ authored by engineers at Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research.
“We’ve reached human parity,” said Xuedong Huang, Microsoft’s chief speech scientist. “This is a historic achievement.”
Harry Shum, who heads the Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research group, added: “Even five years ago, I wouldn’t have thought we could have achieved this. I just wouldn’t have thought it would be possible.”
According to the paper, the speech recognition system makes the same or fewer errors than professional transcriptionists. While it is the first time a computer has recorded a word error rate lower than a human, it is still far from perfect.
More work is needed to improve the system in real-life settings, such as places where there is a lot of background noise. Research into identifying individual speakers when multiple people are talking is also a part of longer-term research efforts.
All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Hardware Capable of Level 4 Autonomy
October 19th, 2016A validation period of unspecified length will be required before the fully autonomous features become available.
Here’s a sentence in the press release that’s worth noting:
Before activating the features enabled by the new hardware, we will further calibrate the system using millions of miles of real-world driving to ensure significant improvements to safety and convenience.
To me, that sounds like the AI is going to be trained by [drum roll]… Tesla customers.
Interestingly, George Hotz’s poor-man’s version of a self drive system is also being trained by human drivers. Hotz is asking people to generate driving data with mobile phones running his company’s app.
Via: Tesla:
Self-driving vehicles will play a crucial role in improving transportation safety and accelerating the world’s transition to a sustainable future. Full autonomy will enable a Tesla to be substantially safer than a human driver, lower the financial cost of transportation for those who own a car and provide low-cost on-demand mobility for those who do not.
We are excited to announce that, as of today, all Tesla vehicles produced in our factory – including Model 3 – will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver. Eight surround cameras provide 360 degree visibility around the car at up to 250 meters of range. Twelve updated ultrasonic sensors complement this vision, allowing for detection of both hard and soft objects at nearly twice the distance of the prior system. A forward-facing radar with enhanced processing provides additional data about the world on a redundant wavelength, capable of seeing through heavy rain, fog, dust and even the car ahead.
To make sense of all of this data, a new onboard computer with more than 40 times the computing power of the previous generation runs the new Tesla-developed neural net for vision, sonar and radar processing software. Together, this system provides a view of the world that a driver alone cannot access, seeing in every direction simultaneously and on wavelengths that go far beyond the human senses.
Model S and Model X vehicles with this new hardware are already in production, and customers can purchase one today.
Before activating the features enabled by the new hardware, we will further calibrate the system using millions of miles of real-world driving to ensure significant improvements to safety and convenience. While this is occurring, Teslas with new hardware will temporarily lack certain features currently available on Teslas with first-generation Autopilot hardware, including some standard safety features such as automatic emergency breaking, collision warning, lane holding and active cruise control. As these features are robustly validated we will enable them over-the-air, together with a rapidly expanding set of entirely new features. As always, our over-the-air software updates will keep customers at the forefront of technology and continue to make every Tesla, including those equipped with first-generation Autopilot and earlier cars, more capable over time.
