FBI Recommends No Criminal Charges in Clinton Email Probe
July 5th, 2016Mmm hmm.
Via: Washington Post:
FBI Director James B. Comey said Tuesday that his agency will not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state but called Clinton and her staff “extremely careless” in handling sensitive material.
The announcement means that Clinton will not have to fear criminal, legal liability as her campaign moves forward…
The FBI director said those who acted as Clinton and her staffers did were “often subject to security or administrative sanctions,” though in comparing her case with similar investigations in the past, the bureau not find any of the aggravating factors that typically lead to the filing of criminal charges.
‘Welcome to Jupiter’: NASA Mission Puts Juno in Orbit After Five-Year Journey
July 5th, 2016Via: Guardian:
After a five-year voyage across 1.8bn miles (2.8bn km), Nasa’s Juno spacecraft has reached Jupiter and successfully entered its orbit.
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Juno’s mission is to peer through Jupiter’s cloud-socked atmosphere and map the interior from a unique vantage point above the poles. Among the lingering questions: How much water exists? Is there a solid core? Why are Jupiter’s southern and northern lights the brightest in the solar system?
“What Juno’s about is looking beneath that surface,” Bolton said before the craft’s arrival. “We’ve got to go down and look at what’s inside, see how it’s built, how deep these features go, learn about its real secrets.”
The fifth rock from the sun and the heftiest planet in the solar system, Jupiter is what’s known as a gas giant — a ball of hydrogen and helium — unlike rocky Earth and Mars.
Bristling with instruments, Juno will peer deep beneath Jupiter’s clouds to learn how the planet formed; what drives its brilliant aurorae; and how its complex weather systems produce the giant red spot and the swirling, enigmatic stripes that decorate its outer layers.
Americans Don’t Know Why They Celebrate 4th of July
July 4th, 2016Via: Mark Dice:
Robot-Made Burgers Coming to San Francisco
July 1st, 2016Via: TechInsider:
A robot-powered burger joint is coming to San Francisco.
In 2012, secretive robotics startup Momentum Machines debuted a machine that could crank out 400 made-to-order hamburgers in an hour. It’s fully autonomous, meaning the robot can slice toppings, grill a patty, and assemble and bag the burger without any help from humans. The internet flipped out.
Years of relative silence ensued, but in January, Hoodline’s Brittany Hopkins learned that the San Francisco-based startup had applied for a building permit to convert a ground-floor retail space in the SoMa neighborhood into a restaurant.
Now it looks like the restaurant is actually happening. A job posting on Craigslist from early June gives us our first glimpse into how the company’s future flagship, presumably opening soon, might work.
Florida: First Person Killed in a Tesla Car in Self-Drive Mode Was a Former Navy SEAL
June 30th, 2016Owner and founder: Joshua D. Brown
I started Nexu Innovations with two things in mind: to make a difference and to have fun. When I look at the world around me I see what it could be. I focus on what could be done to make this world a better place. I then take these ideas and see if I can make them a reality. This is why Nexu has such a diverse range of products and services. I believe that innovation is unlimited and that things can and will always be improved upon.
I attended the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque for three years studying physics and computer science. Following my junior year, I enlisted in the US Navy serving 11.5 wonderful years on active duty as a Master Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EOD). While deployed numerous times overseas, in both warfighting and non-combatant roles with SOF (Special Operations Forces) units, it was my pleasure to work with the most intelligent, innovative, and independent patriots I have ever met. My duty stations included: Information Technology A School, BUD/S, NDSTC, NAVSCOLEOD, EODMU3, KTOD ACTD, and NSWDG. These opportunities allowed development of my operational experience as well as understanding and associations within the research and development (R&D) community.
The circumstances of the crash do make it seem like an actual coincidence, even to me, but:
Via: ABC News:
The U.S. announced Thursday the first fatality in a wreck involving a car in self-driving mode, the 40-year-old owner of a technology company who nicknamed his vehicle “Tessy” and had praised its sophisticated “Autopilot” system just one month earlier for preventing a collision on an interstate. The government said it is investigating the design and performance of the system aboard the Tesla Model S sedan.
Joshua D. Brown, of Canton, Ohio, died in the accident May 7 in Williston, Florida, when his car’s cameras failed to distinguish the white side of a turning tractor-trailer from a brightly lit sky and didn’t automatically activate its brakes, according to government records obtained Thursday.
Frank Baressi, 62, the driver of the truck and owner of Okemah Express LLC, said the Tesla driver was “playing Harry Potter on the TV screen” at the time of the crash and driving so quickly that “he went so fast through my trailer I didn’t see him.”
“It was still playing when he died and snapped a telephone pole a quarter mile down the road,” Baressi told The Associated Press in an interview from his home in Palm Harbor, Florida. He acknowledged he couldn’t see the movie, only heard it.
Tesla Motors Inc. said it is not possible to watch videos on the Model S touch screen. There was no reference to the movie in initial police reports.
Brown’s published obituary described him as a member of the Navy SEALs for 11 years and founder of Nexu Innovations Inc., working on wireless Internet networks and camera systems. In Washington, the Pentagon confirmed Brown’s work with the SEALs and said he left the service in 2008.
“It’s time for the elites to rise up against the ignorant masses.”
June 30th, 2016*chortle*
I can’t remember a time when I’ve seen them shit the bed this badly before.
Via: ZeroHedge:
It appears the powers that be just are not going to take it anymore. Having mistakenly allowed the people of Britain to exercise their free will, Foreign Policy’s James Traub exclaims, “It’s time for the elites to rise up against the ignorant masses.”
How “Fansmitter” Malware Can Steal Data from Air-Gapped Computers
June 30th, 2016Via: MIT Technology Review:
Changing a computer’s fan speed produces an audio signal that can be hijacked to steal data, say computer security experts who have tested the technique.
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Fansmitters are simple in principle. Almost all computers use fans to cool the main CPU and the graphics card, and to pump air through the chassis. When they’re operating normally, the main sound produced by these fans is the result of rotating blades forcing air past static vanes.
The frequency of this sound depends on the number of blades and their rate of rotation. It is usually in the region of hundreds of hertz. Any alteration to this rotation rate changes the frequency of the sound.
This is the basis of their approach. These guys have created malware that alters the rotation speed, and hence sound, of a computer fan to encode data.
The malware transmits information using a special protocol in which the information is divided into packets made up of a preamble and a payload. The preamble consists of the signal 1010, which a listening device can use for calibration. This is followed by a payload of 12 bits that encode the data to be transmitted. This can be picked up by any listening device nearby, such as a smartphone.
One potential problem is that a user might notice, and become suspicious of, the variations in fan noise. So Guri and co use low frequencies of 140 to 170 hertz, which are more difficult for humans to hear. “Modulating the data over change of close frequencies is also less noticeable by a user, as it blends in and appears as natural background environmental noise,” they say.
Fast and Furious: Gun Used in Paris Terrorist Attacks Came from Phoenix
June 30th, 2016Via: Judicial Watch:
One of the guns used in the November 13, 2015 Paris terrorist attacks came from Phoenix, Arizona where the Obama administration allowed criminals to buy thousands of weapons illegally in a deadly and futile “gun-walking” operation known as “Fast and Furious.”
A Report of Investigation (ROI) filed by a case agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) tracked the gun used in the Paris attacks to a Phoenix gun owner who sold it illegally, “off book,” Judicial Watch’s law enforcement sources confirm. Federal agents tracing the firearm also found the Phoenix gun owner to be in possession of an unregistered fully automatic weapon, according to law enforcement officials with firsthand knowledge of the investigation.
The investigative follow up of the Paris weapon consisted of tracking a paper trail using a 4473 form, which documents a gun’s ownership history by, among other things, using serial numbers. The Phoenix gun owner that the weapon was traced back to was found to have at least two federal firearms violations—for selling one weapon illegally and possessing an unregistered automatic—but no enforcement or prosecutorial action was taken against the individual. Instead, ATF leaders went out of their way to keep the information under the radar and ensure that the gun owner’s identity was “kept quiet,” according to law enforcement sources involved with the case.
AI Fighter Pilot Wins in Combat Simulation
June 28th, 2016Via: BBC:
An artificially intelligent fighter pilot system has defeated two attacking jets in a combat simulation.
The AI, known as Alpha, used four virtual jets to successfully defend a coastline against two attacking aircraft – and did not suffer any losses.
Alpha, which was developed by a US team, also triumphed in simulation against a retired human fighter pilot.
One military aviation expert said the results were promising.
In the simulation described in the study, both attacking jets – the blue team – had more capable weapons systems.
But Alpha’s red team was able to dispatch the enemy planes after performing evasive manoeuvres.
Large Helium Deposit Found in Tanzania Using New Technology
June 28th, 2016Via: Independent:
But now a team from Oxford and Durham Universities has made a huge discovery in Tanzania that has developed a brand new way of finding helium. Working with Norwegian firm Helium One, the scientists found a “world-class” helium gas field in Tanzania.
The gas was discovered by using the same expertise from oil and gas exploration to look into how helium was generated underground, in an attempt to understand where it would accumulate. They found that volcanic activity provides the huge amounts of heat that is needed to push the gas out of ancient, helium-bearing rocks.
The scientists found the new field in the Tanzanian East African Rift Valley, where volcanoes push helium from deep rocks and into shallower gas fields.
