Robots Take the Wheel as Autonomous Farm Machines Hit Fields
May 16th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
Robots are taking over farms faster than anyone saw coming.
The first fully autonomous farm equipment is becoming commercially available, which means machines will be able to completely take over a multitude of tasks. Tractors will drive with no farmer in the cab, and specialized equipment will be able to spray, plant, plow and weed cropland. And it’s all happening well before many analysts had predicted thanks to small startups in Canada and Australia.
Half of Americans Are Just One Paycheck Away from Financial Disaster
May 16th, 2019Via: MarketWatch:
Missing more than one paycheck is a one-way ticket to financial hardship for nearly half of the country’s workforce.
A new study from NORC at the University of Chicago, an independent social research institution, found that 51% of working adults in the United States would need to access savings to cover necessities if they missed more than one paycheck.
Certain communities were more prone to economic hardship in the event of missing a paycheck. Roughly two-thirds of households earning less than $30,000 annually and Hispanic households would be unable to cover basic living expenses after missing more than one paycheck, the researchers found.
RealTalk: This Speech Synthesis Model Our Engineers Built Recreates a Human Voice Perfectly
May 16th, 2019Via: Medium:
Today we’re excited to announce that our Machine Learning Engineers Hashiam Kadhim, Joe Palermo and Rayhane Mama have produced the most realistic AI simulation of a voice we’ve heard to date.
It’s the voice of someone you’ve probably heard of before?—?Joe Rogan. (For those who haven’t: Joe Rogan is the creator and host one of the world’s most popular podcasts, which to date has nearly 1300 episodes and counting.)
Obviously, something like this has to be heard to be believed. So without further ado, check it out for yourself:
Driverless Electric Truck Starts Deliveries on Swedish Public Road
May 16th, 2019Via: Reuters:
Resembling the helmet of a Star Wars stormtrooper, a driverless electric truck began daily freight deliveries on a public road in Sweden on Wednesday, in what developer Einride and logistics customer DB Schenker described as a world first.
Robert Falck, the CEO of Swedish start-up Einride, said the company was in partnership talks with major suppliers to help scale production and deliver orders, and the firm did not rule out future tie-ups with large truckmakers.
“This public road permit is a major milestone … and it is a step to commercializing autonomous technology on roads,” the former Volvo executive told Reuters.
The Haunting Last Words of Isaac Kappy: “Now, I Am One of Them”
May 16th, 2019“I am not suicidal.”
Via: Vigilant Citizen:
Isaac Kappy – the actor who accused several Hollywood figures of child abuse – died after throwing himself off a bridge. A few days prior to this fateful day, Kappy posted a haunting video about him “crossing the line” and becoming “one of them”. What actually happened to Isaac Kappy?
Britain: Police Fine Pedestrian £90 for Disorderly Behaviour After Hiding His Face from Facial Recognition Camera
May 16th, 2019Via: Daily Mail:
Police fined a pedestrian £90 for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face when he saw a controversial facial recognition camera on a street in London.
Officers set up the camera on a van in Romford, East London, which then cross-checked photos of faces of passers-by against a database of wanted criminals.
But one man was unimpressed about being filmed and covered his face with his hat and jacket, before being stopped by officers who took his picture anyway.
After being pulled aside, the man told police: ‘If I want to cover me face, I’ll cover me face. Don’t push me over when I’m walking down the street.’
It comes just weeks after it was claimed the new technology incorrectly identified members of the public in 96 per cent of matches made between 2016 and 2018.
Man Makes Videos Critical of New Zealand Government, Gets Visits by Armed Police
May 15th, 2019Here are the videos that attracted the attention of the police.
This is a Facebook post with the video of one of the police visits. In case you don’t use Facebook, someone mirrored the video on YouTube:
Via: Cross the Rubicon:
Drone Attack on Saudi Aramco Facilities
May 14th, 2019Via: Reuters:
Oil prices rose on Tuesday after the world’s top oil exporter Saudi Arabia said explosive-laden drones had attacked two pumping stations belonging to state oil company Aramco.
…
The Saudi state news agency quoted Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih as saying that Aramco had halted pumping on the East-West pipeline until the damage was evaluated, but that production and exports were continuing without disruptions.
Falih said the attack was an “act of terrorism” that targeted the world’s global oil supply.
Saudi Arabia said earlier that two of its oil tankers were among those attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, incidents which ratcheted up tensions in the world’s top oil exporting region.
A U.S. official said Iran was the likely culprit, but Iranian officials denied responsibility for the incident.
Monsanto ‘Compiled Dossier’ on Political Opponents
May 13th, 2019Via: BBC:
French officials are investigating after revelations that agro-chemicals firm Monsanto compiled a potentially illegal file on critics on chemicals and genetically modified crops.
The document was made by a PR agency working for Monsanto, which makes the controversial weed killer glyphosate.
Marketed as Roundup by Monsanto, the weed killer has come under fire in France with calls to ban it.
Its parent company Bayer has apologised over Monsanto’s dossier.
“This is not the way Bayer seeks dialogue with society and stakeholders,” Bayer said, adding that there was no indication of illegal activity.
The list of some 200 people included politicians, journalists and scientists who had raised concerns about Monsanto’s activities, including French MEPs and the environment minister at the time, Ségolène Royal.
It was compiled in 2016, ahead of a vote in late 2017 on whether to approve the use of glyphosate in the European Union for the next five years.
That vote passed. Glyphosate has been classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization, but the US Environmental Protection Agency says it is unlikely to cause cancer in humans, and the European Chemicals Agency said there was not enough evidence to label it as carcinogenic.
France, however, voted against approval, and has since declared it will ban the chemical in the coming years.
All Four Major Wireless Carriers Hit With Lawsuits Over Sharing, Selling Location Data
May 13th, 2019Via: TechDirt:
We’ve noted repeatedly that if you’re upset about Facebook’s privacy scandals, you should be equally concerned about the wireless industry’s ongoing location data scandals. Not only were the major carriers caught selling your location data to any nitwit with a checkbook, they were even found to be selling your E-911 location data, which provides even more granular detail about your data than GPS provides. This data was then found to have been widely abused from everybody from law enforcement to randos pretending to be law enforcement.
Throughout all this, the Ajit Pai FCC has done absolutely nothing to seriously police the problem. Meaning that while carriers have promised to stop collecting and selling this data, nobody has bothered to force carriers to actually confirm this. Given telecom’s history when it comes to consumer privacy, somebody might just want to double check their math (and ask what happened to all that data already collected and sold over the last decade).
Compounding carrier problems, all four major wireless carriers last week were hit with a class action lawsuit (correctly) noting the carriers had violated Section 222 of the Federal Communications Act by selling consumer proprietary network information (CPNI) data:
“Through its negligent and deliberate acts, including inexplicable failures to follow its own Privacy Policy, T-Mobile permitted access to Plaintiffs and Class Members’ CPI and CPNI,” the complaint against T-Mobile reads, referring to “confidential proprietary information” and “customer proprietary network information,” the latter of which includes location data.”
It’s likely that the sale of 911 data is where carriers are in the most hot water, since that’s their most obvious infraction of the law.
