77943613
submission
jfruh writes:
Even if you're a frequent ocean swimmer, you're much more likely to die in a car accident than from a shark attack — and yet sharks strike fear into people's hearts in ways that directly affect the economies of surf paradises like Australia. That's why the Australian government is working on a host of techologies to detect shark incursions on popular beaches, including drones and smart buoys that can identify potential predators.
77210017
submission
jfruh writes:
The average price of a 4GB DDR3 memory DIMM at the moment $18.50 — a price that silicon tech blogger Andy Patrizio calls "just crazy." Why is it so cheap? The memory business tends to go in boom and bust cycles, but the free availability of Windows 10 means that fewer people are upgrading their PCs, reducing RAM demand — and prices might stay low for another two years.
77152777
submission
jfruh writes:
More and more research is suggesting that it isn't safe to text or even talk on our phones hands-free while driving, but one brave car company is pushing full-speed in the other direction. Nissan has created a concept car in which every surface, including the entire dashboard and even the seats, is a display device. The car is the result of "extensive" surveys with the younger generation that came to the conclusion that, according to Nissan, young people "feel that time spent in a car should be time for connecting and sharing experiences with friends."
76920867
submission
jfruh writes:
Apple hasn't changed its privacy policy in more than a year — but that didn't stop the company from putting up a glossy website explaining it in layman's terms. Microsoft too has been touting its respect for its users's privacy. This doesn't represent any high-minded altruism on those companies' parts, of course; it's part of their battle against Google, their archrival that offers almost all of its services for free and makes its money mining user data.
76877877
submission
jfruh writes:
Didi Kuaidi is China's biggest native ride-sharing app, and it's using its cash hoard to build an alliance and global giant Uber. On the heels of a $100 million investment in Lyft, the company is also investing in Ola, India's biggest entry in the market. The deals have been described as involving sharing technology and market knowledge.
76718745
submission
jfruh writes:
IBM's Jeopardy-winning supercomputer Watson is now suite of cloud-based services that developers can use to add cognitive capabilities to applications, and one of its powers is visual analysis. Visual Insights analyzes images and videos posted to services like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, then looks for patterns and trends in what people have been posting. Watson turns what it gleans into structured data, making it easier to load into a database and act upon — which is clearly appealing to marketers and just as clearly carries disturbing privacy implications.
76578881
submission
jfruh writes:
Nigel Wilson of Nottingham was quite a drone enthusiast: he flew a drone over a Champions League soccer match low enough to startle police horses, and at other times flew drones over iPro Stadium in Derby, the Emirates Stadium in north London, and near the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, the HMS Belfast and the Shard tower in London. He's been convicted under the Air Navigation Order 2009 and fined £1,800.
76390121
submission
jfruh writes:
Harm de Vries, a post-doctoral researcher at the Université de Montréal, is trying to build an algorithm that will sort through pictures on Tinder and OKCupid and pick out women he'll find attractive. His program, built using deep learning techniques, has about a 68 percent success rate, which isn't that bad. (A human friend to whom de Vries described his preferences managed 76 percent.)
76323105
submission
jfruh writes:
One of the aspects of the space age that sci-fi writers of the '50s couldn't predict was how much of our space activities are conducted by unmanned satellites rather than human beings. Now, DARPA wants to take that one step further, by building a robot satellite to fix other satellites. The inititative is being headed by former Space Shuttle commander Pamela Meloy.
76211895
submission
jfruh writes:
The latest attack vector hackers are taking advantage of: Google's Webmaster tools, which allow domain owners to index new pages for searching and react quickly to Google-detected malware. It's that last capability that hackers are after, tweaking things to keep infected sites under their control longer.
76109849
submission
jfruh writes:
Microsoft became an OS and PC beheamoth in part by relentless focus on business sales, and is partnering with old friend Dell to try to recreate that success, trying to woo companies into buying Surface Pros loaded with Windows 10. It may seem topsy-turvey that Dell would be selling someone else's hardware, but Dell is offering ancillary services, including warranties, on the Microsoft hardware.
75970661
submission
jfruh writes:
As Nokia's smartphone division becomes more fully absorbed into Microsoft, the company is cleaning house and ending some apps and services that Nokia had developed specifically for Windows Phone. Lumia Storyteller, Lumia Beamer, Photobeamer, and Lumia Refocus are photo and video apps that integrate with online services, and those services will be shutting down on October 30. Microsoft says its to better commit resources to work on the mobile version of Windows 10, which is coming soon, but not all the features of the canceled services will appear in the new OS.
75915335
submission
jfruh writes:
The Machinima gaming video network took money from a marketing agency hired by Microsoft to pay "influencers" up to $45,000 to promote the Xbox One. Crucially, the video endorsers did not disclose that they'd been paid, which has caused trouble with the FTC. For its part, Machinima notes that this happened in 2013, when the current management was not in charge.
75844457
submission
jfruh writes:
I'm a Mac guy — have been ever since the '80s. When Windows 95 was released 20 years ago, I was among those who sneered that "Windows 95 is Macintosh 87." But now, as I type these words on a shiny new iMac, I can admit that my UI — and indeed the computing landscape in general — owes a lot to Windows 95, the most influential operating system that ever got no respect.
75639603
submission
jfruh writes:
The Congressial act that created the Federal Trade Commission gave that agency broad powers to punish companies engaged in "unfair and deceptive practices." Today, a U.S. appeals court affirmed that sloppy cybersecurity falls under that umbrella. The case involves data breaches at Wyndham Worldwide, which stored customer payment card information in clear, readable text, and used easily guessed passwords to access its important systems.
