Saturday, April 22, 2017

22 April - Cryptogon

Today

The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI
Via: MIT Technology Review: Last year, a strange self-driving car was released onto the quiet roads of Monmouth County, New Jersey. The experimental vehicle, developed by researchers at the chip maker Nvidia, didn’t look different from other autonomous cars, but it was unlike anything demonstrated by Google, Tesla, or General Motors, and it showed the […]
Power Outages in San Francisco, New York, and LA
Via: Inverse: A series of power outages in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City on Friday left people across the country struggling to complete their morning commutes. There is currently no evidence to suggest that this is more than just a coincidence, despite worries about some sort of cyber attack. New York City […]

Yesterday

First Coal-Free Day in Britain Since Industrial Revolution
Via: BBC: Britain went a full day without using coal to generate electricity for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, the National Grid says. The energy provider said Friday’s lack of coal usage was a “watershed” moment. Britain’s longest continuous energy period without coal until now was 19 hours – first achieved last May, […]

Apr 20

Five Eyes Meeting in New Zealand
Via: New Zealand Herald: The highly secretive meeting being held in Queenstown this weekend is a gathering of intelligence and security agencies related to the Five Eyes spying network, the Herald understands. Among the people believed to be attending are Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director James Comey and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Mike […]
Google Home Capable of Voice Printing Multiple Users
Back on April 13: Is that Google Home device capable of voice printing people? If so, maybe the phones are too. Well, that didn’t take long. Via: Google: We’re adding the ability for up to six people to connect their account to one Google Home. So now when I ask my Google Assistant for help, […]
The Lilium Jet: Maiden Flight of All-Electric VTOL Aircraft
300km range? That’s what they’re claiming. Hint: If you have any aviation enthusiast children, call them over to your screen, don’t tell them what they’re about to watch and hit play. I wish I had a picture of my nine-year-old’s face when he saw this. But when I said he’d have to let the computer […]
Facebook Envisions Using Brain Waves to Control Mobile Phones, Input Data at 100 Words Per Minute
I already watch what I say around my mobile phone, so how about a brain computer interface from Facebook? This is so far down the no-fucking-way path for me that it’s almost hilarious. Even if people were willing to use such a thing, it’s not coming anytime soon. Here’s why: Long ago, I worked for […]

Apr 19

New Apple Headquarters: That’s No Roof
Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Make sure to watch this in fullscreen mode and at the highest resolution your display supports. At first I thought, haha whatever roofing material they’re using looks like solar panels. *squint at screen* “That’s not… Can’t be. Is it?” Yep. It is. Aesthetically, I get […]

Apr 18

A Cosmic Burst Repeats, Deepening a Mystery
Via: Quanta: To nearly everybody’s surprise, as reported in January in the journal Nature, the bursts originated in a small “dwarf irregular” galaxy, one about a gigaparsec (just over 3 billion light years) away. This made the strength of the signal and its frequent repetitions even more astonishing. “If you’re detecting a bright flash from […]
Courts Are Using AI to Sentence Criminals
Via: Wired: Algorithms pervade our lives today, from music recommendations to credit scores to now, bail and sentencing decisions. But there is little oversight and transparency regarding how they work. Nowhere is this lack of oversight more stark than in the criminal justice system. Without proper safeguards, these tools risk eroding the rule of law […]

Apr 17

World’s First All-Female Special Forces Unit: Norway’s Jegertroppen
Via: NBC: This firefight is just a drill, but the soldiers taking part are battling to break down one of the final barriers to women serving in the armed forces. They are training to become part of Norway’s Jegertroppen or “Hunter Troops” — the world’s first all-female military special forces unit.
New Zealand: Ongoing Dairy Pollution of Te Waikoropupu Springs Reserve
Disclosure: I am involved with the effort to bring attention to the pollution and water take issues at Te Waikoropupu Springs Reserve. — Intensive dairy farming is destroying freshwater resources around New Zealand. It turns out the crown jewel of them all, a national treasure and a globally unique ecosystem is now threatened. How does […]

Apr 15

Apple Receives Permit in California to Test Self-Driving Cars
Via: Reuters: Apple Inc has secured a permit to test autonomous vehicles in California, fuelling speculation that it is working on self-driving car technology in a crowded arena of companies hoping to offer those cars to the masses. The permit allows it to conduct test drives in three vehicles with six drivers, the state Department […]

Apr 13

U.S. Electricity Demand Peaked in 2007
Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — There are many likely small components of this, such as efficiency gains, small scale solar masking loads behind the meter (might explain 1% of demand decline), and high prices for electricity in some areas. But… Via: Bloomberg: Part of the reason is that a grim […]
Burger King Trolls Google Home Devices
Update: Amazon’s Alexa Could Soon Recognize Users by Their Voices If Amazon is working on it, the rest of them probably are. Via: Ars Technica: Amazon’s Alexa may be about to get smarter. According to a report from Time, the online retailer is working on voice identification software for Alexa that would allow the service […]

Apr 12

Delivery Robots: A Revolutionary Step or Sidewalk-Clogging Nightmare?
Via: Guardian: Sharing a sidewalk with one of DoorDash’s delivery robots is a bit like getting stuck behind someone playing Pokémon Go on his smartphone. The robot moves a little bit slower than you want to; every few meters it pauses, jerking to the left or right, perhaps turning around, then turning again before continuing […]
DHS Lays Groundwork for Deportation Force
Via: U.S. News and World Report: The Trump administration is seeking ways to increase capacity within immigration enforcement agencies to create a deportation force President Donald Trump repeatedly advocated on the campaign trail. According to a document obtained by The Washington Post, the Department of Homeland Security has begun the process of ramping up its […]

Apr 11

World’s Largest Solar+Battery Project Announced in South Australia
Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. Via: Electrek: A new project put in motion in South Australia in order to help with the region’s energy problems is likely to become the largest solar plus battery project in the world. Lyon Group, an energy company backed by Mitsubishi, Blackstone and Magnetar Capital, has […]
North Korea State Media Warns of Nuclear Strike if Provoked
Via: Reuters: North Korean state media warned on Tuesday of a nuclear attack on the United States at any sign of American aggression as a U.S. Navy strike group steamed toward the western Pacific. U.S. President Donald Trump, who has urged China to do more to rein in its impoverished neighbor, said in a Tweet […]
Chinese Firm Halves Worker Costs by Hiring Army of Robots to Sort Out 200,000 Packages a Day
Via: South China Morning Post: A viral video showing an army of little orange robots sorting out packages in a warehouse in eastern China is the latest example of how machines are increasingly taking over menial factory work on the mainland. The behind-the-scenes footage of the self-charging robot army in a sorting centre of Chinese […]

Apr 10

‘An Estimated $3 Trillion in Daily Commerce Flows Through COBOL Systems’
Via: Reuters: The Common Business-Oriented Language was developed nearly 60 years ago and has been gradually replaced by newer, more versatile languages such as Java, C and Python. Although few universities still offer COBOL courses, the language remains crucial to businesses and institutions around the world. In the United States, the financial sector, major corporations […]
Farmers Look For Ways To Circumvent Tractor Software Locks
Via: NPR: A new tractor often costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, but one thing not included in that price is the right to repair it. That has put farmers on the front lines of a battle pitting consumers against the makers of all kinds of consumer goods, from tractors to refrigerators to smartphones. Modern […]

Apr 08

Study: Second Opinion from Doctor Results in Different Diagnosis 88% of Time
😯 Via: Mayo Clinic: Many patients come to Mayo Clinic for a second opinion or diagnosis confirmation before treatment for a complex condition. In a new study, Mayo Clinic reports that as many as 88 percent of those patients go home with a new or refined diagnosis — changing their care plan and potentially their […]
Donald Trump Warns That Attacking Syria Could Start World War III
Via: The Dollar Vigilante:
U.S. Carrier Strike Group Sails Toward Korean Peninsula After North’s Missile Test
Via: Military.com: The U.S. Navy’s Carl Vinson carrier strike group has been ordered to cancel planned port visits in Australia and move to the Western Pacific, just four days after the rogue state of North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile from its eastern coast. Officials with U.S. Third Fleet announced Saturday night that the San […]
U.S. Envoy to UN Threatens Further Military Action in Syria
Via: france24: The United States on Friday threatened to take further military action in Syria following its missile strikes on an air base in the war-wracked country in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack. “The United States took a very measured step last night,” US Ambassador Nikki Haley told the UN Security Council. “We are […]

Apr 07

U.S. Fires Missiles at Assad Airbase, Escalating Tensions with Russia
Well, Hillary supporters, maybe you’ll get that war with Russia anyway. Via: Reuters: The United States on Friday fired dozens of cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase from which it said a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched this week, an escalation of the U.S. military role in Syria that immediately raised tension with Russia. […]

Apr 06

Android Devices Can be Fatally Hacked by Malicious Wi-Fi Networks, iOS Patched on Monday
Via: Ars Technica: A broad array of Android phones are vulnerable to attacks that use booby-trapped Wi-Fi signals to achieve full device takeover, a researcher has demonstrated. The vulnerability resides in a widely used Wi-Fi chipset manufactured by Broadcom and used in both iOS and Android devices. Apple patched the vulnerability with Monday’s release of […]
Apple Calls Journalists to Explain That the Company Has Not Abandoned the Mac
Everything is great! Don’t worry. We love you. We’re sorry. Check back next year, mmmkay? The picture at the link looks like an action shot for a Touch of Gray ad. *chortle* Via: TechCrunch: The Mac has an important long future at Apple. Apple cares deeply about the Mac. We have every intention to keep […]

Apr 05

Zunum Aero Developing Electric Powered Aircraft for Regional Flights
They’re actually going to be hybrid to start, according to the Zunum Aero website: Did you know that short-haul flights produce over 40% of aviation emissions? With our aircraft, we believe these will be largely eliminated within twenty years. Our aircraft are “hybrids to electrics” that sip fuel only when they have to, will use […]
Florida’s Money Laundering Suburb
Via: USA Today: In a community known mostly as a getaway from the urban problems of Miami, the flood of drug money has confounded law enforcement agencies. “We always thought we would get to it at some point,” said Charlie Blau, a former federal prosecutor who oversaw the first money laundering sting in Miami. “We […]
Amazon’s Robot War Is Spreading
Via: Bloomberg: It was Amazon that drove America’s warehouse operators into the robot business. Quiet Logistics, which ships apparel out of its Devens, Mass., warehouse, had been using robots made by a company called Kiva Systems. When Amazon bought Kiva in 2012, Quiet hired scientists. In 2015 it spun out a new company called Locus […]

Apr 04

Teardown of Tesla Drivetrain
Multiple groups are working on jailbreaking it. Via: Jehu Garcia:
Ideology Test and Mobile Phone Shake Down to Visit U.S.?
Via: MarketWatch: Foreigners who want to visit the U.S., even for a short trip, could be forced to disclose contacts on their mobile phones, social-media passwords and financial records, and to answer probing questions about their ideology, according to Trump administration officials conducting a review of vetting procedures. The administration also wants to subject more […]
Top Obama Adviser Used NSA Intercepts to Learn Names of Trump Associates
Via: Bloomberg: White House lawyers last month learned that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The pattern of Rice’s requests was discovered in […]

Apr 03

Tesla’s Market Cap Surpasses Ford’s
Via: Bloomberg: Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk poked fun at short sellers as his electric-car maker’s stock surged to a record, vaulting its market value past century-old rival Ford Motor Co. “Stormy weather in Shortville…” the chief executive officer tweeted Monday, as Tesla shares climbed as much as 5.8 percent. The maker of Model S sedans […]
Super SEALs: Elite Units Pursue Brain-Stimulating Technologies
Via: Military.com: At a conference near Washington, D.C., in February, the commander of all Navy special operations units made an unusual request to industry: Develop and demonstrate technologies that offer “cognitive enhancement” capabilities to boost his elite forces’ mental and physical performance. “We plan on using that in mission enhancement,” Rear Adm. Tim Szymanski said. […]
Cyborgs at Work: Employees Getting Implanted with Microchips
Like many of you out there, I first heard about this technology in the 1990s. Decades later, a passive microchip implant seems like a practically innocuous fairy tale compared to the privacy hell that has metastasized all around us. In terms of technologies of political control, think of a chip implant as something like a […]
Eleven Killed in Suspected Suicide Bombing on Russian Metro Train
Via: Reuters: A blast in a St Petersburg train carriage on Monday that killed 11 people and wounded 45 was carried out by a suspected suicide bomber with ties to radical Islamists, Russia’s Interfax news agency cited a law enforcement source as saying. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was in the city when the blast […]

Apr 02

A World Without Retirement
Via: Guardian: We are entering the age of no retirement. The journey into that chilling reality is not a long one: the first generation who will experience it are now in their 40s and 50s. They grew up assuming they could expect the kind of retirement their parents enjoyed – stopping work in their mid-60s […]

Apr 01

With Trump Approval, Pentagon Expands Warfighting Authority
Via: AP: Week by week, country by country, the Pentagon is quietly seizing more control over warfighting decisions, sending hundreds more troops to war with little public debate and seeking greater authority to battle extremists across the Middle East and Africa. This week it was Somalia, where President Donald Trump gave the U.S. military more […]
Autonomous Nissan Leaf
Via: Fully Charged:

Mar 31

Connecticut Considering Use of Drones Outfitted with Deadly Weapons for Police Via: AP: Connecticut lawmakers are considering whether the state should become the first in the country to allow police to use drones outfitted with deadly weapons, a proposal immediately met with concern by civil rights and liberties advocates. The bill would ban the use of weaponized drones, but exempt police. Details on

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