Amazon Now Wanting to Automate Pick and Pack
March 25th, 2015Via: MIT Technology Review:
Robots will use the latest computer-vision and machine-learning algorithms to try to perform the work done by humans in vast fulfillment centers.
Apple Patent Envisions Tracking People in Real Time
March 25th, 2015.gov has probably been doing it for years, so why not?
Via: cnet:
Apple’s current Find My Friends feature could one day expand into more of a Track My Friends feature.
Granted to Apple on Tuesday by the US Patent and Trademark Office, a patent called “Sharing location information among devices” describes a process that would let you view a visual representation of the path taken by another person using a mobile device as a way of following that person’s entire journey.
Germanwings Crash
March 24th, 2015Officials: Co-Pilot Deliberately Crashed Flight 9525
Via: USA Today:
The co-pilot of the Germanwings flight that crashed in the French Alps deliberately worked to destroy the plane while passengers shrieked in terror and the pilot pounded on the cockpit door, a French prosecutor said at a news conference Thursday in Marseille.
“This was voluntary, this was deliberate,” Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said. “He refused to open the cabin door in order to let the pilot back in. I repeat. He refused to let the pilot back in. He is the one who pressed the button that allowed the plane to begin descending and lose altitude.”
The information was obtained from the cockpit voice recorder of doomed Flight 9525, which suddenly began an eight-minute descent before smashing into the mountains Tuesday. The data recorder has not yet been found.
Co-pilot in Alps crash was not on terror watch list
Robin said the co-pilot, identified as German national Andreas Lubitz, 28, was not on a terror watch list. Robin said Lubitz said nothing during the descent, but could be heard breathing until the crash.
“The co-pilot is the only one in the cockpit,’ Robin said. “While he is alone he somehow manipulated the buttons on the flight monitoring system. He was alone at the helm of this Airbus 320.”
Robin stressed that the actions were deliberate. He said passengers could be heard screaming in fear.
“We start hearing banging, someone actually trying to break the door down,” Robin said. “That’s why the alarms were let off — because these were protocols that were put in place in case of any terror attack.”
—
Update: Germanwings Pilot Was Locked Out of Cockpit Before Crash in France
Via: New York Times:
As officials struggled Wednesday to explain why a jet with 150 people on board crashed in relatively clear skies, an investigator said evidence from a cockpit voice recorder indicated one pilot left the cockpit before the plane’s descent and was unable to get back in.
A senior military official involved in the investigation described “very smooth, very cool” conversation between the pilots during the early part of the flight from Barcelona to Düsseldorf. Then the audio indicated that one of the pilots left the cockpit and could not re-enter.
“The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer,” the investigator said. “And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer.”
He said, “You can hear he is trying to smash the door down.”
While the audio seemed to give some insight into the circumstances leading up to the Germanwings crash, it also left many questions unanswered.
“We don’t know yet the reason why one of the guys went out,” said the official, who requested anonymity because the investigation is continuing. “But what is sure is that at the very end of the flight, the other pilot is alone and does not open the door.”
—
Update: Booz Allen Hamilton Contractor Assigned to NGA On Board
Via: NZ Herald/AP:
Two Americans presumed to have died in the plane crash in the southern French Alps include a U.S. government contractor and her daughter, according to a person close to the family.
The mother was identified as Yvonne Selke of Nokesville, Virginia, a longtime and highly regarded employee of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. in Washington, and her daughter, whose name wasn’t immediately available.
Selke worked with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s satellite mapping office, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because this person wasn’t authorized to release information to reporters.
A person who answered the phone at Selke’s home said the family wasn’t providing any information.
A Booz Allen spokeswoman declined to comment, noting that Germanwings had not yet disclosed identities of the crash victims.
“By Associated Press writer Ted Bridis in Washington.
—
Coincidence: General Denis Mercier
Cryptogon reader CM emailed me a remarkable bit of information:
The day before the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 near Barcelonnette, France, General Denis Mercier was appointed to the position of NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation.
General Denis Mercier was born in Barcelonnette.
Via: NATO:
23 Mar. 2015
Press Release (2015) 056
Issued on 23 Mar. 2015
Last updated: 23 Mar. 2015 12:56
The North Atlantic Council today, 23 March 2015, approved the nomination of General Denis Mercier, French Air Force, to the post of Supreme Allied Commander Transformation.
General Mercier is currently serving as the French Air Force Chief of Staff. General Mercier will assume the appointment as successor to General Jean-Paul Paloméros, French Air Force, at a change of command ceremony at the Headquarters of Supreme Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia in September 2015.
On behalf of all Allied governments, the North Atlantic Council expressed deep and lasting gratitude for the distinguished service rendered by General Paloméros as the Supreme Allied Command Transformation.
—
Via: Independent:
Last moments of the plane
Speaking in Cologne, Germanwings CEO Thomas Winkelmann revealed that the plane began descending shortly after it reached cruising height following take-off from Barcelona airport.
10.01am CET Flight 4U 9525 takes off
10.44am Plane reaches cruising altitude
10.45am Plane begins unexplained descent
10.47am Air traffic controllers issue ‘third phase’ distress call
10.53am Radar and radio contact breaks off
A long descent
According to Mr Winkelmann, the plane started to descend very shortly after it reached its cruising altitude – and continued to do so for eight minutes until it crashed into the mountain at an altitude of some 5,000ft.
He said there was no explanation for why this descent from 38,000ft began, but said the 24-year-old plane was checked the day before the flight and that the captain on board was very experienced, with more than 10 years’ service and 6,000 hours of flying time.
Was there a distress signal?
France’s aviation regulator has said that the plane “did not itself make a distress call” during its eight-minute descent from cruising altitude.
While Germanwings’ Mr Winkelmann said there was still some confusion as to whether a distress signal had been sent from the plane, the DGAC authority said that controllers on the ground issued the “distress” call – the third and most serious of three stages of alerts used to help coordinate rescue efforts when an aircraft is considered in difficulty.
“The combination of the loss of radio contact and the aircraft’s descent which led the controller to implement the distress phase,” a spokesman said.
47% of American Households Have No Savings
March 24th, 2015Via: Business Insider:
This could be the scariest chart in the world, from Deutsche Bank’s Torsten Sløk. Nearly half of American households don’t save any of their money.
If it isn’t obvious, this has a broad range of implications. People who don’t save won’t have any buffer should the economy turn and they lose their jobs. Longer term, people who don’t save won’t have the capacity to retire.
Royal Family Member Was Investigated as Part of Paedophile Ring Before Cover-Up, Ex-Cop Says
March 24th, 2015Via: Independent:
A member of the Royal family was claimed to be part of a suspected paedophile ring under investigation by police in the late 1980s, a former police officer has said.
The former Metropolitan Police officer says he was told by a detective sergeant that the investigation into the ring, which was also claimed to include an MP, was shut down for national security reasons.
“I was in a car with two other vice squad officers. … The detective sergeant said he had just had a major child abuse investigation shut down by the CPS regarding a royal and an MP,” he told the Sunday Mirror newspaper.
“He did not mention names, but he said the CPS had said it was not in the public’s interest because it ‘could destabilise national security’.”
The police officer identified the two colleagues, the newspaper said.
Sir Allan Green, the Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the CPS at the time the conversation took place, said he was not aware of any child abuse investigations shut down for national security reasons.
He however said he had been asked by a “senior person” if he had heard anything about a named MP being involved in child abuse. He said he had not.
The MP he was asked about has since died, Mr Green said.
Wife of Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz Takes Leave from Goldman Sachs
March 24th, 2015Via: Bloomberg:
Heidi Cruz, a managing director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in Houston, has taken an unpaid leave from her private wealth-management job to help with her husband’s campaign for the U.S. presidency, a person familiar with the matter said.
Ted Cruz, 44, a Republican senator from Texas, said on Twitter early Monday morning that he plans to run for president in the 2016 election. Heidi Cruz’s leave will last the duration of the campaign, said the person, who asked not to be identified speaking about Cruz’s employment.
Heidi Cruz, 42, a Harvard Business School graduate who worked in President George W. Bush’s administration, joined Goldman Sachs in 2005 and was promoted to managing director, the firm’s second-highest rank, in 2012. She serves as regional head of the Houston office in the private wealth-management unit, which serves individuals and families who have on average more than $40 million with the firm.
“Pentagon Loses Track of $500 Million in Weapons, Equipment Given to Yemen”
March 24th, 2015Another U.S. arms drop to ISIS/al-Qaeda.
Via: Washington Post:
The Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen, amid fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda, according to U.S. officials.
With Yemen in turmoil and its government splintering, the Defense Department has lost its ability to monitor the whereabouts of small arms, ammunition, night-vision goggles, patrol boats, vehicles and other supplies donated by the United States. The situation has grown worse since the United States closed its embassy in Sanaa, the capital, last month and withdrew many of its military advisers.
In recent weeks, members of Congress have held closed-door meetings with U.S. military officials to press for an accounting of the arms and equipment. Pentagon officials have said that they have little information to go on and that there is little they can do at this point to prevent the weapons and gear from falling into the wrong hands.
“We have to assume it’s completely compromised and gone,” said a legislative aide on Capitol Hill who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Technology and Persuasion
March 23rd, 2015Via: MIT Technology Review:
The idea that computers, mobile phones, websites, and other technologies could be designed to influence people’s behavior and even attitudes dates back to the early 1990s, when Stanford professor B.?J. Fogg coined the term “persuasive computing” (later broadened to “persuasive technology”). But today many companies have taken that one step further: using technologies that measure customer behavior to design products that are not just persuasive but specifically aimed at forging new habits.
If habit formation as a business model was once largely limited to casinos and cigarette manufacturers, today technology has opened up the option to a broad range of companies. Insights from psychology and behavioral economics about how and why people make certain choices, combined with digital technologies, social media, and smartphones, have enabled designers of websites, apps, and a wide variety of other products to create sophisticated persuasive technologies.
Canada: False Flag Operations and Cyberwar
March 23rd, 2015Via: First Look:
According to the Snowden documents, it has a range of “deception techniques” in its toolbox. These include “false flag” operations to “create unrest,” and using so-called “effects” operations to “alter adversary perception.” A false-flag operation usually means carrying out an attack, but making it look like it was performed by another group — in this case, likely another government or hacker. Effects operations can involve sending out propaganda across social media or disrupting communications services. The newly revealed documents also reveal that CSE says it can plant a “honeypot” as part of its deception tactics, possibly a reference to some sort of bait posted online that lures in targets so that they can be hacked or monitored.
The apparent involvement of CSE in using the deception tactics suggests it is operating in the same area as a secretive British unit known as JTRIG, a division of the country’s eavesdropping agency Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Last year, The Intercept published documents from Snowden showing that the JTRIG unit uses a range of effects operations to manipulate information online, such as by rigging the outcome of online polls, sending out fake messages on Facebook across entire countries, and posting negative information about targets online to damage their reputations.
Cost to Earthquake-Proof L.A.’s Crumbling Pipe System? $15 Billion
March 23rd, 2015Bone dry death trap… I wonder when I first used that term on here to describe where I’m from. Google spits up results from 2007, but I’m almost sure there are earlier ones.
Anyway, quick hint about the phrase “mass evacuation”: You won’t want to be a part of that. Mmmkay?
Via: Los Angeles Times:
Mayor Eric Garcetti’s call to strengthen Los Angeles’ water system — one pillar of his ambitious plan to ready the city for a major earthquake — would cost as much as $15 billion and require decades of work, Department of Water and Power engineers estimate.
The previously undisclosed cost projection, contained in an internal DWP report reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, could mean sharply higher water bills for those who live and work in L.A. It also underscores the financial uncertainty surrounding a key element of the mayor’s first-term agenda.
Since Garcetti announced his sweeping earthquake-safety proposal in December, public attention and political debate have centered on requirements to strengthen unsafe buildings. But the plan’s most far-reaching impact could be its scheme to fortify the city’s sprawling network of water pipes and aqueducts.
Water infrastructure is “the single biggest vulnerability we’re facing in Southern California,” according to U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones, who oversaw development of Garcetti’s earthquake proposals. Safeguarding the system is essential, the mayor argues, to prevent businesses from shutting down and a “mass evacuation” by people who lack water to drink, shower or flush toilets in the aftermath of a severe earthquake on the southern San Andreas fault.
