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Comment Re:Insurance (Score 1) 389

by cohensh (#45231255) Attached to: Autonomous Cars Will Save Money and Lives
I don't think this is as big a problem as you expect. First, there will never be a day D when there aren't autonomous cars, and a day D + 1 when there are. They're going to be integrated slowly and continuously. Think, cruise control, adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assist, automated parallel parking.

In the near future you won't have driverless cars, both for technological and social/legal reasons, any commercial car will require a person in the driver's seat. That makes liability easy, whoever's in the driver's seat is responsible for the car and its actions. It's exactly the same as if you turn on cruise control in a "non-autonomous" car and rear end someone on the highway. You're liable, even though you're using technology.

The auto acceleration isn't really apples to apples with this. That's just a potential product failure (Like car's catching on fire when they get rear-ended). It doesn't really apply to autonomous cars more than non autonomous cars, except for the potential "autonomous cars are more complex", which is questionable anyway, considering how complex current cars are.
Medicine

Submission + - New Program Detects Alzheimer's 6 Years Before Symptoms With 100% Accuracy (counselheal.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Being able to diagnose people with Alzheimer's disease years before debilitating symptoms appear is now a step closer to reality. Researchers behind Neurotrack, the technology startup that took the first health prize at this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) startup accelerator in Austin, says their new technology can diagnose Alzheimer's disease up to six years before symptoms appear with 100 percent accuracy.
Google

Submission + - Google Voice teams up with Sprint (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
bhagwad
bhagwad writes: "Google announced today that it was teaming up with Sprint which will allow users to seamlessly use their Sprint mobile number as their Google Voice number and vice versa. This is quite a big step for Sprint and shows a lot of guts since carriers have always been wary of giving up control. Though GV allowed users to port their phone numbers some time ago, this tie up makes it easy and could finally propel GV into the public's mass consciousness."
The Internet

Submission + - UN Wants to Control the Internet (itnews.com.au) 2

Submitted by Dangerous_Minds
Dangerous_Minds writes: News has surfaced in the wake of the Wikileaks story that the United Nations is mulling total inter-government control of the internet. The initiative was spearheaded by Brazil and supported by other countries including India, China, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Meanwhile, Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid commented that while the Cablegate story may be bad, attempting to destroy Wikileaks would only make matters worse for various governments around the world given what happened when the music industry shut down Napster ten years ago.
HP

Submission + - Hidden Backdoor Discovered on HP MSA2000 Arrays (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: A hardcoded password-related security vulnerability has been discovered which apparently affects every HP MSA2000 G3, a modular large scale storage array. According to the alert, a hidden user exists that doesn’t show up in the user manager, and the password cannot be changed, creating a perfect “backdoor” opportunity for an attacker to gain access to potentially sensitive information stored on the device, as well as systems it is connected to.
Google

Submission + - Yale Switching to Gmail, Not Without Opposition (yaledailynews.com) 2

Submitted by PwnSnake
PwnSnake writes: While it makes sense for small (and large) corporations to move to Gmail, something seems amiss when a top private university decides to hand everything over to Google. Although most on campus seem to welcome the change, several organizations on campus have joined forces to call for a transparent process and get students and faculty thinking about the downsides of the switch. The problem is choice (users can already forward mail to Gmail; it doesn't make sense to force that option and not have a backup or opt-out mail server).
Businesses

Submission + - Are Silicon Valley's Glory Days Over?

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Pete Carey writes in the Mercury News that there are "clear warning signs" that Silicon Valley has entered "a new phase of uncertainty" in which its standing as a tech center is at risk and that decisive action by business, government and education is needed if the region is to retain its standing as the world's center of technical innovation. "It could be that Silicon Valley has a different future coming," says Russell Hancock. "It's not a given that we will continue to be the epicenter of innovation." Among the troubling indicators in the Silicon Valley Index (PDF): 90,000 jobs lost in the last two years; the influx of foreign science and engineering talent has slowed; venture capital funding has declined; per capita income is down 5 percent from 2007; and the number of people working as contractors rather than full-time employees is rising. Adding to the valley's problems is a malfunctioning state government that is shortchanging investment in education and infrastructure. "Who wants to come here to a state with a $20 billion annual deficit?" says Emmett Carson. There are plenty of candidates to take the valley's place as innovation capital: Austin, Texas, and Huntsville, Alabama, are beating the valley in snagging federal funds and India or China could someday wrest the title away from the valley. "We're sort of sitting on our laurels and singing 'We're Silicon Valley,' " adds Carson. "We've got to have a call to action, to bring together our political, business and educational leadership, and in a comprehensive way, or we are at risk,""

Comment Re:oh good lord (Score 1) 283

by cohensh (#31121956) Attached to: Emmerich Plans <em>Foundation</em> As a 3D Epic

Just about every scene in the first three Foundation books is people talking, and that's all it is, and more to the point, that's precisely why it's amazingly good.

I totally agree that Foundation is good for this reason, as well as some of my favorite movies are good for this reason. I always say my favorite movies are the ones where nothing's happening but everyone's talking. However, I feel like I'm in the minority and a true interpretation of Foundation would be boring to the masses. After all, movies are made for the profit not the story.
Google

Submission + - Google Tweaks Buzz toTackle Privacy Concerns (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Just two days after launching its Buzz social networking tools, Google said Thursday night that it had tweaked the technology to address early privacy concerns. Google said in a blog post that the quick updates makes it easier for users to block access to their pages and eases the path to finding two privacy features. 'We've had plenty of feature requests, and some direct feedback,' wrote Todd Jackson, a product manager for Gmail and Google Buzz, in the blog post. 'In particular there's been concern from some people who thought their contacts were being made public without their knowledge (in particular the lists of people they follow, and the people following them). In addition, others felt they had too little control over who could follow them and were upset that they lacked the ability to block people who didn't yet have public profiles from following them.'

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