#myNYPD Twitter Campaign Backfires, Promotes Photos of Police Brutality Instead of Positive Encounters with Public
April 23rd, 2014Via: New York Daily News:
An exercise in social media outreach turned #epicfail Tuesday when users flooded the Twittersphere with some of the NYPD’s most infamous moments of brutality.
The NYPD, through its Twitter page, innocuously asked people on to post pictures of themselves interacting with New York’s Finest — complete with the hashtag myNYPD.
But instead of happy pictures of cops posing with tourists and helping out locals, Twitter erupted with hundreds of photos of police violence, including Occupy Wall Street arrests and the 84-year-old man who was bloodied for jaywalking on the Upper West Side earlier this year.
Research Credit: ottilie
The Pittsburgh Startup That Has Big Plans for Batteries
April 22nd, 2014Via: Guardian:
From cell phones to laptops to electric cars, the world is becoming increasingly dependent on batteries. Unfortunately, this convenience comes at a cost: some common battery materials are toxic and require special treatment after their end of life. A new company is hoping to combat this cycle: It has begun using more benign materials to make its energy cells.
Aquion Energy, a Pittsburgh-based startup that uses water and salt for some of the key components in its batteries…
One factor that distinguishes Aquion is the novel cocktail of materials that it uses in its batteries. Each cell has an electrode at each end, a separator to divide the two, and an electrolyte to create an electrochemical reaction with the electrodes to produce electricity. Aquion uses manganese oxide and activated carbon for the electrodes, and a sodium sulfate solution for the electrolyte. The separator is made from a synthetic material that has a structure similar to cotton.
“We are using common and benign materials of salt water, dirt and carbon,” said Ted Wiley, vice president of product and corporate strategy at Aquion. “We are using materials that are non-toxic and readily available in high volumes. And they won’t be damaging to the environment.”
Introducing AISight: CCTV Network Completely Run by AI
April 22nd, 2014
Via: ITProPortal:
BRS Labs’ AISight is different because it doesn’t rely on a human programmer to tell it what behaviour is suspicious. It learns that all by itself.
The system enables a machine to monitor is environment, and build up a detailed profile of what can be considered “normal” behaviour. The AI can then determine what kind of behaviour is abnormal, without human pre-programing.
Pentagon’s Superpowered Autopilot Will Do the Work of 5 Crew Members
April 22nd, 2014Via: Wired:
Some think that the Defense Department couldn’t possibly reduce its forces as much as it claims it will. After all, who would fly the planes?
Now DARPA has an answer. The Pentagon’s research arm is developing a sophisticated, drop-in autopilot that can replace as many as five crew members of a military aircraft, and turn the pilot into a high-level “mission supervisor” issuing commands through a touch screen.
The Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) program is a tailorable, removable kit that will assist in all phases of aircraft flight — even dealing with emergency system failures in-flight. The agency says the system will reduce pilot workload, augment mission performance and improve aircraft safety.
“Our goal is to design and develop a full-time automated assistant that could be rapidly adapted to help operate diverse aircraft through an easy-to-use operator interface,” said Daniel Patt, DARPA program manager, in a statement. “These capabilities could help transform the role of pilot from a systems operator to a mission supervisor directing intermeshed, trusted, reliable systems at a high level.”
DARPA says it plans to build on the advances in autopilot technology over the past 50 years and develop a highly adaptable automated system that can move from aircraft to aircraft and execute missions from takeoff to landing — all from a simple touch and voice recognition interface.
Allowing ALIAS to handle lower-level flight maintenance tasks would free human operators to focus on mission-level tasks, according to DARPA.
Man Prefers $50 3D Printed Prosthetic Hand to One That Cost $42,000
April 21st, 2014Via: 3dprint.com:
After some time had passed, Simon decided to meet up with Delgado once more, this time to work on the setup of the tendons within the Beast. To his amazement, Delgado had told him that the 3D printed hand has been functioning better than the myoelectric device, and he had preferred it to the $42,000 hand he had used for over a year. Sure, a piece may break every once in a while, as ABS plastic is not the strongest material in the world, but the solution is simple, print a replacement.
Simon is currently working with Delgado to print him a new hand; this time from a stronger material called Bridge nylon, which will give Delgado an even more robust hand.
The Ticking Time-Bomb at the Bottom of the Baltic Sea
April 21st, 2014Via: The Economist:
THERE IS something dangerous lurking in the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea. Nearly 70 years after the victorious Allies dumped thousands of tonnes of Nazi chemical weapons and chemical agents into the Baltic Sea, experts have warned of an environmental disaster as the weapons corrode and their deadly contents spill into sea.
Under an agreement reached at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, Britain and the Soviet Union dumped around 65,000 tonnes of Germany’s chemical weapons stockpile into the murky depths of the Baltic Sea in 1947-48. Since then the threat posed by the shells and drums full of hazardous waste has been subject to speculation and research. Some scientist called it a “ticking time-bomb”.
It now appears the ticking has got louder. Recent research by Poland’s Military University of Technology has found traces of mustard gas on the sea bed just a few hundred metres off the Polish coast, in the Gulf of Gdansk. This indicates corrosion of the metal, and that poisonous chemicals are now leaking into the water and could be absorbed by fish, entering the food chain. Scientists are concerned, but not just because containers are leaking. There should be no chemical weapons in the Gulf of Gdansk as this was not a dumping zone. Stanislaw Popiel, from the team of the military university, which carried out the research, said that it was hard to say where the contamination came from.
One possible explanation is that the Soviets had a fairly care-free attitude to where they dumped the weapons. Although the vast majority of the munitions were thrown into the Bornholm and Gotland deeps, Jacek Beldowski, from the Polish Institute of Oceanography, said the Soviets often threw everything overboard “as soon as they were out of sight of land”. This means there could be tonnes of chemical weapons lying in unknown locations, close to land and in fishing zones. Mr Beldowski has also found an increase in fish with illnesses and genetic defects in the areas of the known dumping zones; evidence that some of the containers are indeed leaking.
Corn Ethanol Is a Scam
April 20th, 2014Thanks Captain!
Via: Fortune:
OK, can we please stop pretending biofuel made from corn is helping the planet and the environment? With huge subsidies for ethanol in gasoline, with all States now selling gasoline having some ethanol blend, and a general misconception that these biofuels are green, corn ethanol has taken on a $30 billion/yr life of its own.
BNP Banker, His Wife And Nephew Murdered In Belgium
April 20th, 2014Via: ZeroHedge:
In the beginning it was banker suicides. Then about two weeks ago, suicides were replaced by outright murders after the execution-style killing of the CEO of a bank in otherwise sleepy (and tax evasive) Lichtenstein by a disgruntled client. Then on Friday news hit of another execution-type murder in just as sleepy, if not so tax evasive, Belgium, where in the city of Vise, a 37-year-old Director at BNP Paribas Fortis was murdered alongside his wife and a 9 year old nephew in a premeditated and orchestrated drive-by shooting.
NJ Mumps Victims Were Vaccinated
April 19th, 2014In other news: Measles Outbreak Traced to Fully Vaccinated Patient for First Time.
Via: ABC News:
An outbreak of mumps among New Jersey college students has highlighted the “weak sister” in the MMR vaccine.
At least eight students at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken have contracted the contagious virus despite having received two doses of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, according to the college.
“All Stevens’ students are required to have full vaccinations before attending the University,” the college said in a statement, adding that “outbreaks of mumps have occurred in vaccinated populations before.”
Western Lawmakers Gather in Utah to Talk Federal Land Takeover
April 19th, 2014Via: The Salt Lake Tribune:
It’s time for Western states to take control of federal lands within their borders, lawmakers and county commissioners from Western states said at Utah’s Capitol on Friday.
More than 50 political leaders from nine states convened for the first time to talk about their joint goal: wresting control of oil-, timber -and mineral-rich lands away from the feds.
“It’s simply time,” said Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, who organized the Legislative Summit on the Transfer for Public Lands along with Montana state Sen. Jennifer Fielder. “The urgency is now.”
Utah House Speaker Becky Lockhart, R-Provo, was flanked by a dozen participants, including her counterparts from Idaho and Montana, during a press conference after the daylong closed-door summit. U.S. Sen. Mike Lee addressed the group over lunch, Ivory said. New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington also were represented.
The summit was in the works before this month’s tense standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management over cattle grazing, Lockhart said.
“What’s happened in Nevada is really just a symptom of a much larger problem,” Lockhart said.
