Canadian Airline WestJet Gets into the Holiday Spirit

Back in 2013, more than 250 passengers on Calgary-bound flights were part of a "Christmas miracle" put on by WestJet. The Calgary-based airline had a virtual Santa ask passengers what they wanted for Christmas as they scanned their boarding passes at a kiosk in Toronto and Hamilton Canada. While the flights were en route, 175 WestJet volunteers gathered gifts from Best Buy and other stores. The WestJetters then needed to get all the items through security and then wrap them before the flight landed in Calgary. By this time, most of the travelers had forgotten about their holiday wishes with Santa. As they waited for their luggage, WestJet had quite a surprise lined up for them.


Here is a follow-up video from WestJet.

Credits: http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/about/our-story.shtml

Remote Controlled Piano Gives Chicagoans Holiday Spirit

Amtrak made this holiday surpise possible: http://www.amtrak.com/ Directed and produced by viral video agency Rob Bliss Creative: http://bit.ly/TaNJc4 Piano performance by Andrew Blendermann:

Pluto's Hi Res Photos

We all knew this day was coming. After months of enjoying increasingly detailed images of Pluto, we've finally reached the peak: The most detailed images acquired by New Horizons during its July flyby of the distant dwarf planet. As it's unlikely that another Pluto-centric mission will occur anytime soon, we can basically assume that these are the most detailed images many of us will ever see of the alien world.

The new images have resolutions of about 250-280 feet per pixel, which amounts to features the size of half a city block. We've gone from seeing Pluto as a distant, smudgy blur of light to seeing details a few hundred feet in size. Click here to veiw more images.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/12/05/nasa-releases-the-first-batch-of-its-sharpest-images-of-pluto/?tid=ss_tw

Privacy issues with Barbie

Mattel's "Hello Barbie," which allows children to engage in conversation with the iconic doll, suffered at launch from serious security issues, according to analysis by experts at Bluebox Labs. Much like how Siri and Google Now work, the doll would send recorded speech to the cloud, where the audio is analyzed and a response determined, which is sent back to the doll for playback.

But Bluebox's analysis, published Friday, shows that this process was vulnerable at several points. The app, for instance, would connect to any Wi-Fi network with the word "Barbie" in the name, regardless of whether that connection was secure or not — putting transmitted data at risk. The servers that stored and analyzed speech were vulnerable to phony security certificates as well, Bluebox reported, and had not patched the widespread "POODLE" bug that affects secure connections.



Credits:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/gadgets/hello-barbie-goodbye-privacy-expert-says-connected-doll-has-security-n474446&ved=0ahUKEwj5vJL7xcXJAhXs64MKHVURAWsQqG8ISTAB&usg=AFQjCNHG-OwS2Tn1vjAYw5vCGFmZAXVUmw&sig2=8Yy8YOeuiNWiEbyixVtZxQ

Tech Tatoos

Chaotic Moon, a start-up known for conjuring fun projects like a shark-punching virtual game, has a wide range of applications in mind for the temporary tattoo technology it's developing. Called "Tech Tats," they're quite literally stick-on tattoos that look a bit embossed against the skin, since they contain electronic components, including a microcontroller and LED lights. Company CEO Ben Lamm called them "the new wearable" during his TechCrunch interview, pointing out that they can be a slightly more permanent version of Fitbit and other fitness trackers. They can, for instance, detect if you're stressed, monitor your body temp, blood pressure and heart rate, and then transmit all those data through their electroconductive paint.

However, it has a lot of other potential uses: you might be able to use it to track your child in crowded places someday and to pay for your purchases à la Apple or Samsung Pay. Lamm also believes that it could be used by the military to monitor soldiers' condition and location. At the moment, though, Tech Tats are just a prototype like most high-tech temp tattoos other companies and researches are developing. They include a UC San Diego team that created tats that can turn sweat into electricity, a group of Korean scientists making graphene tattoos and even Motorola, which is thinking of creating mic tattoos for your throats.



Credits:
http://gizmodo.com/circuit-board-tattoos-that-actually-work-will-make-your-1744403982?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Albert Einstein's Theory Turns 100

The year 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of Einstein's field equations. To celebrate this event, the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (or Albert Einstein Institute) will host a conference during the week of November 30, 2015, exactly one hundred years after the publication of Einstein's paper. The conference will take place in the recently renovated Harnack House, Ihnestr. 16-20, D-14195 Berlin, where Albert Einstein regularly lectured between 1915 and 1931.

Einstein explained that when two objects are moving at a constant speed as the relative motion between the two objects, instead of appealing to the ether as an absolute frame of reference that defined what was going on. If you and some astronaut, Amber, are moving in different spaceships and want to compare your observations, all that matters is how fast you and Amber are moving with respect to each other.



Credits:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/11/28/_david_tennant_explains_einstein_s_theory_of_relativity_on_its_100th_anniversary.html

Li Fi could Speed Wireless Connectivity

A new method of delivering data, which uses the visible spectrum rather than radio waves, has been tested in a working office. Li-fi can deliver internet access 100 times faster than traditional wi-fi, offering speeds of up to 1Gbps (gigabit per second). It requires a light source, such as a standard LED bulb, an internet connection and a photo detector. It was tested this week by Estonian start-up Velmenni, in Tallinn.

< One of the big advantages of li-fi is the fact that, unlike wi-fi, it does not interfere with other radio signals, so could be utilised on aircraft and in other places where interference is an issue. While the spectrum for radio waves is in short supply, the visible light spectrum is 10,000 times larger, meaning it is unlikely to run out any time soon. But the technology also has its drawbacks - most notably the fact that it cannot be deployed outdoors in direct sunlight, because that would interfere with its signal. Neither can the technology travel through walls so initial use is likely to be limited to places where it can be used to supplement wi-fi networks, such as in congested urban areas or places where wi-fi is not safe, such as hospitals.

Credits:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34942685

Belgians Support Police with Cat Pics

http://magazine.good.is/articles/belgian-twitter-cats-terrorism-police-action

Four Thanksgiving Apps

Before you and your family start cooking this weekend, there are some smartphone apps that can play the role of a digital sous-chef. You can pretty much toss the cookbook out the window with these.

First, a great Thanksgiving dinner starts with good food. "Yummly" is a one stop shop for finding recipes and reviews from around the web. The app pulls recipes from big names like Martha Stewart and even smaller independent blogs.

Then, on Thanksgiving, you're going to have lots of dishes cooking at once. For that, you'll need an app that let's you set multiple times. CNET says the most well-designed is "Timer Plus." All you have to do is set a timer, give it a name, and you'll get an alert when the times up.

Need to help pick out a nice bottle of wine? Take a picture of a label and get quick reviews. The app then shows you ratings, reviews, and average prices.



Credits:

Trump Trump

An app developer named Julio Castillo is trying to save us from Donald Trump. At least those of us who use iPhones to surf the web and get our news. Last week, Castillo launched ”K Blocker,” a content-blocking extension for iOS 9 that thwarts all Kardashian-related content from annoying users who download the extension. On the heels of the glorious extension’s release, Castillo has gifted us with another gem–the “Trump Trump” extension which offers iOS 9 users the opportunity to enjoy a Donald Trump-free Internet experience.

Castillo, who is the co-founder of furtiv Ltd. an independent app development company, announced the release of the Trump content blocker on Product Hunt where he explained the impetus for the extension’s launch. He wrote, “After I made a Kardashian blocker for iOS … I was flooded with requests for a Trump blocker. I don’t know if we are heading towards a future where we’ll be able to block everything that we don’t like, but here’s my small contribution to dystopia.”

Credits: 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/abigailtracy/2015/11/18/the-new-trump-trump-app-blocks-everything-related-to-the-donald-from-your-iphone/

CHS Robotic Students Meet a "Cool Tech News Item"

This was a "Cool Tech Newsy Item" last year. On Saturday, three CHS girls attended a "Young Women's Engineering Symposium. There, they met the robot.

https://goo.gl/photos/9NoPBiw3hyXanoU89

After Paris Attacks, Should Governments have "Backdoors" to Our Messages?

So-called end-to-end encryption technology -- meaning data is encrypted from the sender to the recipient -- is now widely used in many standard message systems, including Apple’s iMessage and Facebook’s WhatsApp. Similar technology also shields the contents of smartphones running the latest versions of Apple and Google operating software. Strong encryption is used to protect everything from corporate secrets to the credit-card numbers of online shoppers to photos of grandkids by families.

That widespread use of encryption, which was previously restricted to more powerful desktop or server computers, is exactly what worries members of the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Some are now using the occasion of the Paris attacks to once again argue for restrictions on the technology, saying it hampers their ability to track and disrupt plots like the Paris attacks. Documents leaked by Snowden also shed light on NSA efforts to break encryption technologies. In response, law-enforcement and intelligence officials have argued that companies like Apple and Google should build “backdoors” into their encryption systems that would allow investigators into otherwise locked-up devices. The Obama administration continues to encourage tech companies to include such backdoors, although it says it won’t ask Congress for new law that requires them.



Credits:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/11/16/paris-terror-attacks-encryption-debate-imessage-whatsapp/

LiveScribe Pen Records and Plays Back Lectures

The LiveScribe pen is a combination of ordinary ink pen and a digital camera (and supporting hardware) that digitally records everything written with the pen. It works by recognizing a special non-repeating dot pattern printed on the paper. The non-repeating nature of the pattern means that the pen is able to determine which page is being written on, and where on the page the pen is. When used with Anoto digital paper, it records what it writes for later uploading to a computer, and synchronizes those notes with any audio it has recorded. This allows users to replay portions of a recording by tapping on the notes they were taking at the time the recording was made. It is also possible to select which portion of a recording to replay by clicking on the relevant portion of a page on-screen, once it has been synced to the Livescribe Desktop software.

The first Livescribe offering three years ago (2 GB Pulse Smartpen) was not exactly svelte, but it had the capacity to record 200 hours of audio and has proved to be an extremely reliable and useful tool for a busy use. The Echo is a refinement of the original Pulse. It is slimmer, and doesn't quite look like one of those metal cigar containers. It has twice the memory of my original smartpen. The price has come down over the years significantly making an investment in a smartpen even more attractive.

Livescribe Demo Video

Google Shares AI Software

In open sourcing the TensorFlow AI engine, Google showed that, when it comes to AI, the real value lies not so much in the software or the algorithms as in the data needed to make it all smarter. Google is giving away the other stuff, but keeping the data.

TensorFlow, you see, deals in a form of AI called deep learning. With deep learning, you teach systems to perform tasks such as recognizing images, identifying spoken words, and even understanding natural language by feeding data into vast neural networks connected machines that approximate the web of neurons within the human brain. If you feed photos of cats into a neural net, you can teach it to recognize cats. If feed it conversational data, you can teach it to carry on conversations.

After the rise of cloud computing, in which companies like Amazon and Microsoft rent access to the vast processing power of the net, we all have access to a vast arrays of machines. But the richest data sits inside massive companies like Google and Facebook. Billions of people use their services, which trade in a rich trove of information, from text to photos to videos to speech and beyond. Both companies are hard at work building powerful AI software. But their real competitive edge comes from having a vast quantity of high quality data they can use to teach this software to “think” more like a human.



Credits:
http://www.wired.com/2015/11/google-open-sourcing-tensorflow-shows-ais-future-is-data-not-code/

Cal Trans Uses Science to Demolish the Bay Bridge Today

One of the largest remaining chunks of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge is coming down tomorrow, as engineers continue to dismantle the aging piece of infrastructure. But how to protect the fish and other wildlife in the area as it gets taken down? By blowing bubbles. The implosion of the large pier, named E3, has been delayed for months due to environmental concerns. After scientists were worried about the many birds which live in the old spans and piers, a November date was finally decided upon because it would be the least disruptive when it came to migration and mating. The blast will happen at slack tide so fewer creatures will be in the water. But there are a few other tech tricks in place to keep animals far away from the explosion.

Sadly, even the bubble curtain will not be able to stop the shockwave entirely, which is still expected to kill 1,775 endangered longfin smelt (an oddly specific number). But engineers claim that this is the better solution: The environmental impact from slowly dismantling the pier by hand during many months and potentially years would only drag out the process and kill more animals over time.




Credits:
http://gizmodo.com/this-bubble-curtain-will-protect-san-franciscos-marin-1742425516

The blast: http://abc7news.com/traffic/largest-remaining-pier-in-eastern-span-of-old-bay-bridge-demolished/1084741/

Instagram 3rd Party App Steals Passwords

Apple and Google have both put the kibosh on an app that was hijacking the passwords of Instagram users. Known as "Who Viewed Your Profile - InstaAgent," the app claimed to help Instagram users find people who were viewing their profiles, The Guardian reported on Wednesday. Instead, the app was grabbing account credentials of Instagram users who logged into it. The app then uploaded those credentials in an unencrypted format to a third-party server, tweeted software developer David Layer-Reiss, who caught the malicious activity.

Those of you who installed "Who Viewed Your Profile - InstaAgent" should delete the app immediately and change your Instagram password. If you used the same password on any other sites, you should change that one as well. The remote server to which the passwords were uploaded -- instagram.zunamedia.com -- is identified as a suspected phishing site, so you're urged to avoid it.

Credits: 

http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/third-party-instagram-app-pulled-after-stealing-passwords/

TomTom Edits Videos with a Phone

Editing videos can be a pain. It usually requires a lot of time after a shoot at a computer, which might crash readily. TomTom, the company best known for its GPS navigation systems, came up with a solution in the Bandit, a camera that can handle both capturing your adventures and editing the best moments together into a movie you can share straight from a phone or tablet. The Bandit addresses a few other shortcomings you might find in competing cameras and has very good video quality, too, but the easy on-camera editing is the star attraction.

When you connect the Bandit wirelessly to a mobile device, you can view all of these tags in your clips. If you want to add a highlight tag, you can do that just by tapping a star symbol overlaid on the video when you're playing back. From there, you can select Create a Story from the app's menu to build a movie. You can manually select the highlights you want to use for your video, or simply give your phone or tablet a shake. If you go for the latter, a bunch of thumbnails for your highlights bounce around the screen and eventually line up on a timeline. Once your highlights are on the timeline, you can move the clips around if you don't like the order they landed in or you can cut them out altogether. You can add music from what's available on your device.

Mozilla Firefox's Improved Ad Blocker

The latest version of Firefox will come with a powerful ad-blocking feature, Mozilla announced today. Under the browser's new setup, Private Browsing mode will block any script that could be used to identify a user, including ads, analytic trackers, and features like the Facebook Like button that can be tied back to social networks. The result is a more anonymous kind of browsing that will load pages faster and cut off many of the web's most surveillance-friendly features, along with the advertising networks many websites use to make money.

Mozilla emphasizes tracking scripts rather than advertising units, but Private Browsing mode will also function as an ad-blocker, allowing sites to load faster without serving any ads or analytics data back to the host. "You might notice that some web pages load more quickly with tracking protection," says Mozilla's VP Nick Nguyen in the video. "We don't think you'll mind."

The red planet is known to have a thin and dry atmosphere, but scientists believe it was not always this way and something happened in the planet's past that caused it to lose its air. Nasa said the new 'key science findings', which are due to be announced on Thursday, could provide novel insights about Mars's history, evolution, and, possibly, the planet's habitability.

Measurements from Nasa’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (Maven) mission show that the atmosphere was ripped away by a huge burst of gas and magnetism from the Sun. The results of the mission bring far more detail to scientists’ understanding of how the Martian atmosphere changed during its early life. When it was younger, Mars was much warmer and wetter — and so potentially far more hospitable to life. But at some point since, it has dried out and become far colder, making it harder to live there and leaving life very rare if it exists at all.

3D Models of Cancer Help Doctors

Cancer is a terrible thing, but a beautiful representation of it might just help health care experts treat the disease more effectively. An international team of researchers has developed a 3D tumor simulation that shows how cancerous cells grow and mutate unevenly over time. Each color you see in a given model represents a different mutation -- the more successful one of these aberrations is at migrating and reproducing, the more its color dominates the tumor. The simulation is also much better than previous models at representing the overall shapes of tumors, illustrating the bulges that come as the cancer rapidly outgrows any nearby healthy cells.

This isn't a perfect replication of a tumor. It tends to omit or simplify a few factors, so you couldn't use the code to predict how illnesses develop in a real body. However, the jump in accuracy may still be extremely helpful. Scientists could gauge the effectiveness of treatments before going ahead with clinical trials, or study the resistances that lead to a tumor bouncing back following a remission. In essence, the medical world should spend more time refining its cancer-fighting techniques and less time double-checking that these techniques work.

Credits:
http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/26/3d-cancer-models/

Super Slo-Mo Bullets

Ever wanted to see a bullet shoot through a banana? A hamburger? An apple? A lightbulb? A jug of water? Milk? Ham? A single playing card? You got your wish then. Vickers Tactical shot bullets at totally random objects in slow motions and the results are pretty damn incredible.

May the Fridge be With You

You know how tiring it can be to get up from the couch to get your next tasty beverage? Well now this R2-D2 mini-fridge can actually roll through the house, transporting and several chilled cans of your beverage of choice at a time. Now that for using The Force!

Haier Asia has created a new remote control R2-D2 shape mini fridge, which can chill your beer and even bring it to you if you are feeling too lazy to move your feet. This fridge is like no other since it is teeming with awesome features such as Wi-Fi and a projector that can show movies through the average Android mobile operating system. AQUA said they now accepting pre-orders for the R2-D2 fridge on their website. Haier is charging 998,000 yen for the appliance, which is just north of $8,200 Dollars before factoring in shipping, tax, and import fees. However, Star Wars paraphernalia like this always comes at a price.



Credits:
http://www.tjcnewspaper.com/remote-controlled-star-wars-r2-d2-mini-fridge-58890/

Hackers Threaten To Expose KKK Members

Last year, Anonymous responded to the Ku Klux Klan’s threats toward peaceful Ferguson protesters by “de-hooding” a sizeable portion of the hate group. #OpKKK not only tormented racists by revealing who they are but led to the hacktivists knocking numerous Klan websites offline and even stealing the “white Christian organization’s” Twitter account. Fearing “real danger” as a result of the outings, many members decided to quit the Klan for fear that their reputations may be damaged and harm may come to them.

Recently, Klan members have been strongly criticizing Anonymous, and the hacking group has re-upped its online "de hood" campaign. In a press release, Anonymous writes, "When people are faced with grave injustices, those cries do not go unheard. Ku Klux Klan, We never stopped watching you. We know who you are. The last time we took your hoods off, you claimed to be misunderstood. Victimized. No. You are a damaged, dangerous, fragmented, splintered and amorphous collection of terroristic cells with a hate-based ideology and a well documented history of violence against the American public – assault, murder, terrorism. You play a deep, damaging and historically sinister and malevolent role in the United States. The aim of this operation is digital. Another cyber war trist, nothing more. We are not violent. We will release, to the global public, the identities of up to 1000 klan members, Ghoul Squad affiliates and other close associates of various factions of the Ku Klux Klan across the Unites States.

Click here for a video.

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/10/29/anonymous-hackers-threaten-to-release-names-of-ku-klux-klan-memb/21255800/?a_dgi


Credits:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/10/27/hacktivist-group-anonymous-promises-to-de-hood-1000-kkk-members-screenshots/

The Great Pumpkin IS Coming

NASA scientists are tracking the upcoming Halloween flyby of asteroid 2015 TB145 with several optical observatories and the radar capabilities of the agency's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California. The asteroid will fly past Earth at a safe distance slightly farther than the moon's orbit on Oct. 31 at 10:05 a.m. PDT (1:05 p.m. EDT). Scientists are treating the flyby of the estimated 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) asteroid as a science target of opportunity, allowing instruments on "spacecraft Earth" to scan it during the close pass.

Asteroid 2015 TB145 was discovered on Oct. 10, 2015, by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS-1 (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) on Haleakala, Maui, part of the NASA-funded Near-Earth Object Observation (NEOO) Program. According to the catalog of near-Earth objects (NEOs) kept by the Minor Planet Center, this is the closest currently known approach by an object this large until asteroid 1999 AN10, at about 2,600 feet (800 meters) in size, approaches at about 1 lunar distance (238,000 miles from Earth) in August 2027.

Credits:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4745

Cassini To Fly Thru Saturn's Moon Debris

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will sample the ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wednesday, Oct. 28, when it flies through the moon's plume of icy spray. Cassini launched in 1997 and entered orbit around Saturn in 2004. Since then, it has been studying the huge planet, its rings and its magnetic field.

Enceladus is an icy moon of Saturn. Early in its mission, Cassini discovered Enceladus has remarkable geologic activity, including a towering plume of ice, water vapor and organic molecules spraying from its south polar region. Cassini later determined the moon has a global ocean and likely hydrothermal activity, meaning it could have the ingredients needed to support simple life. The flyby is not intended to detect life, but it will provide powerful new insights about how habitable the ocean environment is within Enceladus.

Credits:
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/seven-key-facts-about-cassinis-oct-28-plume-dive/

A Star (Well Lots of em) is born

http://gizmodo.com/behold-the-splendor-of-a-starburst-galaxy-1738544972

How did they make it? Click here to view the Lexus team develop their board and track.

Man arrested for hacking for isis

Malaysian authorities have arrested a man over charges of hacking and allegedly providing personal information of more than 1,000 U.S. military personnel and federal employees to the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS. The man has been identified as Ardit Ferizi, a Kosovo citizen, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Ferizi, believed to be in his 20s, was taken in custody on Sept. 15, Malaysian national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement late Thursday, according to the Associated Press, adding that investigations showed that he was in contact with a senior ISIS leader in Syria.

Earlier in August, Hussain posted a tweet with the title “NEW: U.S. Military AND Government HACKED by the Islamic State Hacking Division,” which contained a hyperlink to a 30-page document. “That document stated, in part, that ‘we are in your emails and computer systems, watching and recording your every move, we have your names and addresses, we are in your emails and social media accounts, we are extracting confidential data and passing on your personal information to the soldiers of the khilafah, who soon with the permission of Allah will strike at your necks in your own lands,’” the statement read. The post was intended to provide ISIS supporters in the U.S. and elsewhere with the personal information of the listed military and federal employees for encouraging terrorist attacks against those individuals, according to the statement.

http://launch.newsinc.com/share.html?trackingGroup=69016&siteSection=bmaq&videoId=29820086

Not Very Techy, but a Cool Slip-n-Fly

Robotic Shuttles Launch in San Ramon

The robot cars are here! The robot cars are here! For the first time in the US, driverless shuttles will zip around employees of a Northern California office park. The first public trials are set to start next summer, pending local approval. The shuttles, which are designed by a company called EasyMile, will zip through Bishop Ranch in San Ramon, a 500-acre office park that’s home to the headquarters of companies like AT&T and General Electric. The shuttles will travel at very slow speeds along dedicated routes, and the pilot program will start with only two buses.

Driverless shuttles are working out just fine in many other countries from the Netherlands to China. An entire fleet of driverless “pods” are being tested in the UK city of Milton Keynes. There’s even a pilot program of driverless golf carts designed by MIT that zoom people around a Singapore park. Besides the novelty factor, there could be some serious real-world impact if these things work out. Right now dozens of drivers who shuttle technology company workers from San Francisco to Silicon Valley are threatening to walk off the job due to very long shifts and extremely low pay. Whizzing employees around an office park is a little different than barreling passengers down the 101 Freeway, but this is an important start. Let the robot drivers take over the more geographically grueling routes and help the human drivers get better jobs that allow them to be closer to home.


Credits:
http://gizmodo.com/the-uss-first-autonomous-buses-will-drive-around-a-cali-1734989938

Hologram Stops People from Parking in Handicapped Spaces

Disabled drivers face many challenges, and it certainly doesn't help when abled-bodied people park in spots specially designated for those who are handicapped. According to the advertising agency Bird Strategy, more than 30% of drivers in Russia disregard the signage that’s painted on the ground and park in handicapped spots. Working with disability-rights advocacy group Dislife, they sought to confront these offenders in a clever and impactful campaign that was installed in shopping centers around Russia.

To get drivers’ attention, the issue was presented in a lifelike-way right in front of them. As offenders were about to pull into the handicapped-designated space, a hologram projection of a disabled person would suddenly appear before them. The surprise confrontation gave drivers the empathetic perspective they needed to back up and find another place to park.

This illusion was created with water, cameras, and a projector. A nearly-invisible water mist screen was sprayed into the parking space, which allowed for a moving image to be cast onto it. As a driver pulled in, special cameras verified that there was a disabled sticker on their windshields. If not, the hologram appeared in front of the driver and put a face to the space (and the cause). Watch the video below to see the campaign in action.

Volkswagen Uses Software to Cheat Emissions

Volkswagen Groups's incoming chairman warned managers that the automaker's diesel-emission scandal poses "an existence-threatening crisis for the company" as new details emerged about how the debacle unfolded. The crisis, which has wiped out $34 billion in the company's value as shares have fallen, stems from the disclosure by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month that VW had rigged nearly 5 million diesel cars in the U.S. to pass emissions tests even though they spewed far greater emissions on the highway. VW admitted to the fraud and said 11 million vehicles are affected worldwide.

The New York Times reported Sunday that the cheating began in 2008 after Volkswagen's engineers figured out that the new diesel engines they had developed at great expense would not meet emissions standards in the U.S. and other countries. So they installed software to beat the tests, the Times reported based on unnamed sources with knowledge of the inquiry. The cheating resulted from not wanting scrap the years of effort they had put into developing the engine. The report says VW is yet to pinpoint who was responsible for the cheating. Several engineers have admitted to creating the software aimed at cheating the tests, Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported Sunday. The software may have been contained in parts from a big auto industry supplier, Continental, Bild says. But a Continental spokesman denied that the company knew of any contaminated software and wasn't in a position to measure emissions.

White House Honors Teen Who Encourages Girls to Code

Swetha Prabakaran dreamed of becoming a physician, using the power of medicine to heal the sick and to are for the ailing. But then during her freshman year, she took a computer science class and learned about programming. She becoming fascinated with coding and the intricacies of how to teach computers to make life easier for people. “I learned I could help people in the same way with computers and not just a stethoscope,” said Swetha, 15, a junior from Ashburn, Va.

Earlier this month, Swetha was honored at the White House as one of 11 young women named “champions of change,” for her work as the founder of Everybody Code Now! The nonprofit operates in 12 states and has partnerships in India and Ghana to help elementary school students, from kindergarten through fifth grade, learn how to code. According to a White House statement, the Champions of Change program “was created as an opportunity for the White House to feature individuals doing extraordinary things to empower and inspire members of their communities.”

Swetha said that she began teaching young students how to code as a sophomore hoping to pass on her own excitement for the seemingly limitless potential of computer programming. Swetha has created a Pokemon game and is now working on an app to streamline the process for food banks to get donations into the hands of the needy.

Here is her website.

Credits:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/white-house-honors-teenager-who-inspires-girls-to-do-computer-coding/2015/09/27/9a9cc036-6080-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html

Tesla Model X

THE WORLD’S FIRST luxury electric SUV is gorgeous. It’s futuristic. And once again, Tesla Motors is redefining the electric vehicle. The Silicon Valley automaker has teased us for years with the Model X, but yesterday it finally gave the world its first look at the production model, then handed six customers the keys.

Those people now own a $130,000 electric vehicle that will go 250 miles on a charge, carry seven people and haul more stuff than anyone but a hoarder might want with him. And although the X shares much of its DNA with the impressive Model S P90D sedan, in many ways it eclipses that phenomenal car. It’s not just the design, which is futuristic without being weird. It’s not just the performance, which is incredibly fast. And it’s not even the dramatic “falcon” doors that lift like the wings of a bird. It’s how all of those features come together in a vehicle that somehow makes an SUV not just cool, but desirable.

Click here for the video

Credits

http://www.cnet.com/videos/tesla-model-x-first-drive-of-the-all-electric-suv/

NASA Finds Running Water Flows on Mars

Mars appears to have flowing rivulets of water, at least in the summer, scientists reported Monday in a finding that boosts the odds of life on the red planet. "Mars is not the dry, arid planet that we thought of in the past," said Jim Green, director of planetary science for NASA. Scientists in 2008 confirmed the existence of frozen water on Mars. Now instruments aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have yielded what researchers said is the strongest evidence yet that water in liquid form trickles down certain Martian slopes.

The rivulets — if that's what they are, since the evidence for their existence is indirect — are about 12 to 15 feet wide and 300 feet or more long, scientists said. They apparently consist of wet soil, not standing water. The water is believed to contain certain salts — not ordinary table salt, but magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate. Like road salt used to melt ice and snow on Earth, such compounds can prevent water from freezing at extremely low temperatures. That would explain how water could exist in liquid form on Mars, which has an average temperature of minus 81 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition to supporting life, the presence of liquid water could make things easier for astronauts visiting or living on Mars. Water could be used for drinking and for creating oxygen and rocket fuel. NASA's goal is to send humans there in the 2030s.

https://youtu.be/kf9phc4icMs 

Credits:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-mars-water-20150928-story.html

Super Moon Eclipse

a supermoon combines with a lunar eclipse for the first time since 1982. The supermoon eclipse will last 1 hour and 11 minutes, and will be visible to North and South America, Europe, Africa, and parts of West Asia and the eastern Pacific, according to NASA. Weather permitting, the supermoon will be visible after nightfall, and the eclipse will cast it into shadow beginning at 8:11 p.m. ET. The total eclipse starts at 10:11 p.m. ET, peaking at 10:47 p.m. ET.

A rare phenomenon, there have only been five supermoon eclipses since 1900 (in 1910, 1928, 1946, 1964 and 1982). After Sunday, the next supermoon eclipse will occur in 2033. A supermoon occurs when a new or full moon is at its closest to the Earth. "Because the orbit of the moon is not a perfect circle, the moon is sometimes closer to the Earth than at other times during its orbit," said Noah Petro, deputy project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement. "When the moon is farthest away it’s known as apogee, and when it’s closest it’s known as perigee. On Sept. 27, we’re going to have a perigee full moon—the closest full moon of the year."



Credits:
http://www.space.com/30670-supermoon-lunar-eclipse-weather-forecast.html

New bike design

Ever wonder why all the bikes in the Tour de France all look the same? Well it's because the International Cycling Union (UCI) puts stringent controls on bikes. And bike manufacturers don't like producing products that don't meet their standards. Yet there are lots of different ways to design and construct a bike. The lead designer from bike manufacturer Specialized, Robert Eggers, is fed up. So he designed a completely new type of bike -- one with a motor no less. Eggers almost looked to violate as many UCI rules as he could. And he ended up with his new bike, the fUCI. 

A concept bike that allows you to disable the entire system when locking up as well as generate power and offer routes while you pedal is being developed. And while the fUCI bike won’t abide by the official rules for racing bikes, it offers a tantalising glimpse into the future of cycling. The fUCI is an e-bike powered by a lithium battery to enable super-fast acceleration. It also uses a fly-wheel - a device that can provide energy even when you're not pedalling - to increase efficiency. Robert Egger, creative director of California-based bike manufacturer Specialized, built the concept bike to revolutionises the design of the bicycle from the ground up, reimagining everything from the aerodynamics to streamlined integration using the latest technology. Using the smartphone as its central hub, the bike would know when it is day or night and be able to switch lights on or off accordingly, and use proximity sensors like in modern cars to give cyclists a warning when other vehicles approach. Egger said the fUCI would utilize GPS and route suggestions to modernise the whole cycling experience.

click here for the video.

Credits:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3218037/The-bicycle-future-FUCI-concept-bike-boasts-smartphone-docking-station-solar-panels-motion-sensors-built-lock.html

11 year builds a planner

For families where the children spend time commuting back and forth between parents’ houses, keeping track of everyone’s schedule can be a challenge for moms, dads and kids alike. That’s a problem that Alex Jordan, age 11, has faced firsthand, which is why she returned this weekend to the TechCrunch Disrupt SF Hackathon to work on Famtastic, a combination family organizer and private social network for families and other caregivers, like grandparents and nannies.

This is Alex’s second time competing at the TechCrunch Hackathon. In 2013, she worked on Super Fun Kid Time – a playdate finder.

“I would be having a sleepover with my friends,” Alex explains. “[And I’d have to ask my parents] ‘are you picking us up? When are you coming?’,” she says. “You feel like you’re always bugging them.” Along with dad Richard, who works at Ron Johnson’s e-commerce startup Enjoy, a concierge service for gadget owners, the team of two built a basic family organizer website over the course of the weekend. Alex says she did some of the HTML templates for Famtastic, and has been practicing her Ruby coding.

Credits: 

http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/20/eleven-year-old-alex-jordan-shows-off-famtastic-an-online-family-planner-at-the-disrupt-sf-hackathon

Catholic Pastor Builds A Tribute to the Pope -- In Legos

To some, Legos are like a religion. When you're done with a project, it can feel like a religious experience. But for the Rev. Bob Simon creating something cool out of Lego bricks is more than just a fun way to pass the time. The pastor from St. Catherine of Siena Church in Moscow, Pennsylvania, used over half a million Lego bricks and minifigures to re-create this impressively-detailed Lego replica of the Vatican for the pope's visit to the US this week.

The awe-inspiring Lego model features St. Peter's Basilica and includes the statues that line the square, along with minifigures of the pope, nuns, priests, and various tourists. There's even a nun taking photos of herself with a tiny selfie stick. Plus Simon made sure to add a Lego minifigure version of himself. "It was an exercise in patience," Simon said. "I was thrilled with the way that everything came out. It was daunting." Considering that an average Lego piece costs 10 cents, this amazing Lego model of the Vatican is estimated to have cost $50,000 to make, according to Fortune magazine.



Credits:
http://www.cnet.com/news/pastor-re-creates-the-vatican-in-lego-for-the-popes-visit/#ftag=CAD590a51e

Zombie Servers Sucking Up Huge Amounts of Electricity

A zombie server is one that is running but is either not actually configured to a network, or one that hasn't been accessed and used for over six months. These servers — and there are millions of them, by one estimate — are sucking up lots of power while doing absolutely nothing. It is a lurking environmental problem that doesn’t get much discussion outside of the close-knit community of data-center operators and server-room geeks. Think of Facebook, Google, Instagram, and other social media. These companies have huge data storage centers. In 2010, the latest year for which there are estimates, data centers burned about 2% of all electricity used in the U.S. By one study’s calculation, there are more than 3.6 million comatose servers in the U.S. Keeping them powered up requires the services of an estimated 1.44 gigawatts of generating capacity—equivalent to three big power plants.

For example, an audit of AOL's servers found that a third of its servers simply weren’t needed, and another third ran software that could be moved to the cloud. The company ended up decommissioning 14,000 servers and slashing its data-center power consumption 35%, according to Chris Blelloch, AOL vice president, global infrastructure and platform services. Comatose servers, he says, are “most definitely a real problem,” in particular for companies that are more than five years old. To a large extent, it is a management problem. On one side are the IT people, who set up the servers and keep them humming along. And then there are the operations folks, like Mr. Nally, who supply the cooling and the power and manage the electricity bill. The IT workers—those in the best position to know which computers are ready to be turned off—don’t have a strong incentive to decommission their comatose boxes.

Stanford, Toyota to collaborate on AI research effort

Artificial intelligence is integrated into daily life, although often in imperceptible ways, such as language translators or algorithms that provide shopping tips based on past purchases. The next wave of AI-enabled devices that interact with humans will be far more obvious – think intelligent robotics and autonomous cars – and will become a driving force in reshaping society and individual lives. In a critical step toward the future of robotic cars, last week Stanford announced the formation of the SAIL-Toyota Center for AI Research, a new research center funded by $25 million from Toyota to further the development of artificial intelligence technologies. The collaboration is part of a combined effort by Toyota, Stanford and MIT, where Toyota is also funding a parallel research center, to advance the state of autonomous systems, with a goal of reducing traffic casualties and assisting drivers in various ways.

The collaboration builds on decades of leading-edge AI research conducted at Stanford. In the 1960s, the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, or SAIL, built some of the first chess-playing computers, and by the 1970s, the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Language was one of the predominant tools for programming AI platforms. More recently, Stanford researchers have built systems that have aced several autonomous driving competitions.



Credits:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/september/toyota-stanford-center-090415.html

Computer Chip that Self-Destructs

It sounds like something straight out of a spy movie, but Xerox PARC engineers have devised an innovative way to protect top-secret messages sent via computer. According to a report from Engadget, a new chip that explodes into thousands of pieces was developed under DARPA’s Vanishing Programmable Resources program. The chip uses Gorilla Glass instead of metal or plastic, which is ion-exchanged tempered to apply a heavy amount of stress. Glass treated with stress shatters easily, and would completely disable a computer chip made from the material. The research team that developed the chip displayed their work at DARPA’s “Wait, What?” event, triggering the self-destruction process with a high-powered laser. They filmed the process in slow motion, and you can see the chip explode and continue to shatter into tiny shards in all directions.

The chip could have widespread applications in the transmission of sensitive or classified information, like encryption keys and passwords. Once the recipient accesses the information, they can initiate the self-destruct process and prevent anyone from ever viewing it again. The engineers also demonstrated that the self-destruct sequence could be initiated by radio signals or a physical switch in addition to the laser. The chip could be triggered remotely, and could have widespread implications for privacy and the protection of sensitive data.

Credits:
http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/12/self-destructing-computer-chip-darpa/ 

Many Baby Monitors are Hackable.

A security company on Wednesday released a report on an assortment of new vulnerabilities in baby monitors from several manufacturers: predictable information leaks; backdoor credentials; reflective, stored XSS; direct browsing; authentication bypass; and privilege escalation. Backdoor credentials -- the vulnerability most frequently found -- showed up in five products from different manufacturers.News that a hacker had breached a baby monitor in a Houston family's home kicked off an uproar a couple of years ago -- but things haven't changed in the baby monitor industry.

What's wrong with the baby monitor vendors? "Vendors in the Internet of Things are still very much learning just how complex the devices and ecosystem really is to secure," said company president, Victor Stanislav. Also, many of the vendors in the baby market space are newer companies that leverage many third parties, he said, and firmware for the components in the devices is "often years old, contributing to the lack of security." In the race to market and bring products to consumers, inattention to security is likely to be an issue, said Craig Spiezle, executive director of the Online Trust Alliance.

Credits:
http://abc7chicago.com/news/some-top-baby-monitors-lack-basic-security-features-report-says/968884/

Computer Art

Computers: they make everything so easy these days. They check our spelling for us and help with maths, and now machines have added painting to the list of things they are better than us at. Researchers in Germany have found that an algorithm can accurately copy the painting style of artists as disparate as Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh – and in just 60 minutes.

The algorithm forms a “convolutional neural network” (CNN) which, in lay terms, uses object recognition to recreate the foundation image (which can be anything) in the style of a piece of specific art. In fine art, especially painting, humans have mastered the skill to create unique visual experiences through composing a complex interplay between the content and style of an image. Thus far the algorithmic basis of this process is unknown and there exists no artificial system with similar capabilities. However, in other key areas of visual perception such as object and face recognition near-human performance was recently demonstrated by a class of biologically inspired vision models called Deep Neural Networks. Here is an artificial system based on a Deep Neural Network that creates artistic images of high perceptual quality.

Credits:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/02/computer-algorithm-recreates-van-gogh-painting-picasso

USF Creates First Online Assault Reporting System

The University of San Francisco will become one of the first colleges in the nation to try a new online reporting system for victims of sexual assault. The website will launch in the fall for the USF students. It was designed with input from people who've been sexually assaulted and it will potentially help the university crack down on crime. For someone who's been sexually assaulted, reporting it to police can feel like an impossible and traumatizing next step.

The app, called Callisto, allows a victim to privately write up an account of what happened. "It asks trauma informed questions along the way and even when they answer a question, they can click on a button that says, why are we asking this question?" said USF vice provost of student life Peter Novak. The student can then choose to just save the file or send it to the university. The site also has a matching system if the victim knows their attacker. "They can put an identifying telephone number, or name, or email account into the system and if it's matched by somebody else, it automatically goes to the university and we can stop repeat offenders," Noval said.

Three Category 4 Storms in the Pacific

It was a historic moment in meteorology late last week, when three Category 4 storms were simultaneously spotted marching across the Pacific. As if that wasn’t ominous enough, a tropical depression has just added itself to the mix.

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) in Honolulu Hawaii is issuing advisories on all of the hurricanes. On Sunday, August 30, from west to east, Hurricane Kilo was located 1,210 miles west-southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, Hurricane Ignacio was located 515 miles east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii, and Hurricane Jimena was located 1,815 miles east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii. Maximum sustained winds are near 140 mph (220 kph) with higher gusts. Kilo is a category four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane wind scale. Little change is expected for the next 12 hours…then slight weakening through 48 hours. The estimated minimum central pressure is 940 millibars.

Google is Dead. Long Live Alphabet!

In a surprise move, Google co-founcers Larry Page and Sergey Brin, announced a radical shake-up of the company’s corporate structure and management. A new company named Alphabet will preside over a collection of companies, the largest of which will be Google. Even the site’s new address eschewed convention: https://abc.xyz/. The bulk of their business, search and the like, will be handled by the new Google CE0 Sundar Pichai.

“As Sergey [Brin, co-founder] and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, ‘Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one’,” wrote Page. Google has come under pressure as its founders have used the enormous success of its search engine to fuel riskier bets on autonomous cars, smart household devices, internet-delivering balloons and cutting-edge medical research. The major restructuring will ostensibly give investors greater insight into how the money is being spent.

All shares of Google will automatically convert into corresponding shares of Alphabet, which will continue to trade under the stock ticker symbols GOOG and GOOGL. Shares in Google soared 5% in after hours trading. The new structure is said to be similar to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which wholly owns a number of diverse holdings and has stakes in several others. Page will become Alphabet’s CEO. Brin will be its president, and Eric Schmidt will be the executive chairman of Alphabet.

Credits:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/10/google-alphabet-parent-company

Google Expanding its Driverless Car Program.

Google had a (not very well-kept) secret when it unveiled its experimental self-driving car: that first example you saw was just a mockup that lacked many of the basics. At last, however, the internet giant has unveiled a complete prototype of the car that has everything it needs to hit the road, including the autonomous driving system and typical mechanical parts like braking, lighting and steering. Yes, it still looks like a koala on wheels, but this motorized marsupial is now ready to hit the test track.

The company is bringing "a few" of the prototype autonomous vehicles to Austin, Texas within the next few weeks. They'll stick to the same northern parts of the city as the modified Lexus SUVs do today, so don't expect to see one parked outside of Stubb's BBQ any time soon. Still, this is a rare chance to see Google's robotic ride outside of its native habitat -- so long as you aren't trying any fancy bike tricks, you're in for a treat.

Credits:

http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/31/google-self-driving-car-in-austin/

http://www.cnet.com/videos/google-unveils-their-first-self-driving-car/

A Qwerty Keyboard for Your Phone or Tablet

Typing with your thumbs on a smart phone or tablet is a pain. It's inefficient and it's slow. So seeing a need, LG has launched the first “rollable” keyboard for mobile devices, one where users can fold into a stick and carry it in their pocket or bag. Unlike other portable keyboards on the market, LG’s Rolly Keyboard (model KBB-700) folds up along the four rows to create an easy-to-carry “stick” that fits into one’s pocket as easily as any purse or briefcase.

Featuring high-contrast keys and a fold-out mobile device stand, typing on Rolly Keyboard is extremely comfortable because its 17mm key pitch is nearly as generous as the 18mm key pitch found on most desktop keyboards. Made of impact-resistant and durable polycarbonate and ABS plastic, typing on the keyboard offers satisfying tactile feedback not found on flexible silicone keyboards. Two sturdy arms fold out to support smartphones as well as tablets 1 in an upright position. Simply unfolding the Rolly Keyboard enables the auto pairing function to connect easily to two different devices at the same time via Bluetooth 3.0 with the ability to toggle between the two with a simple key press. A single AAA battery powers the keyboard for up to three months of average use.

Credits:
http://www.lgnewsroom.com/2015/08/lg-develops-full-size-keyboard-for-pockets/

Austrialia Uses High Tech to Track Honeybees

Since January 2014, Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has been using (radio-frequency identification) RFID tags to track bees. These tiny chips monitor the movements of the bees, with a view toward finding out where the insects go, and what role those places may play in colony collapse disorder, the mysterious phenomenon of disappearing bees. Today, US-based tech company Intel and the CSIRO have announced a partnership, using Intel's Edison postage stamp-sized Breakout Board Kit computer, originally designed with wearable technology in mind, to help monitor the bees. 

Researchers have strong suspicions about what causes colony collapse, which is a massive problem in food production, since bees are so integral to plant pollination. Proposed causes include pesticides, fungicides and miticides, as well as diseases and parasites, loss of genetic diversity through breeding or genetically modified crops. But it's difficult to pin down what the exact causes are. By tracking where the bees go, researchers hope to gain some insight into what environments the bees are exposed to. To date, more than 15,000 bees in Tasmania, Australia, as well as the Brazilian Amazon in partnership with the Vale Institute of Technology, have been tagged with tiny RFID backpacks.

Link to the video.

Credits: 
http://www.cnet.com/news/intels-edison-joins-the-quest-to-save-the-bees/

Go Jek -- An App to defeat traffic in Jakarta

Uber is great; so is Lyft. But what if traffic is so bad, an entire city is nearly gridlocked? In Jakarta, there is an app with a solution to this problem. While motorcycle taxis, known locally as ojek, have long been a popular form of transport in Jakarta, Go-Jek is the first attempt to introduce a hi-tech booking system and guaranteed service standards. Outside of Go-Jek, ojek riders congregate on street corners, and are not officially registered. Payments have to be made in cash, and prices are a matter of negotiation. By contract, Go-Jek recruits and trains its staff, who get uniforms, helmets, and a smart phone on which they manage their pick ups.

The brainchild of 30-year-old Indonesian entrepreneur Nadiem Makarim, the Go-Jek app has been downloaded more than 500,000 times since the service launched in Jakarta at the start of this year. He also decided that passengers would like to see an increased level of trust and accountability. Therefore the app allows customers to see the distance to their destination, and calculate the exact cost of the journey. For each kilometre (0.6 miles) travelled with Go-Jek, customers are charged 4,000 rupiah (29 cents; 20p).

Windows 95 turns 20 Years Old

Windows 10 was recently released by Microsoft. Many tech analysts feel this software could determine the success or failure of the tech giant. Most reviewers think Windows 10 is a significant improvement to Windows 8. Twenty years ago today, people were lining up at CompUSA or Best Buy at midnight. It wasn’t a new Call of Duty game, Apple’s latest iPod, or any type of hardware at all that shoppers were waiting for. It was software, and not just any software: Windows 95.

Microsoft’s Windows 95 release on August 24th, 1995 was a highly anticipated launch. Jay Leno helped launch the software alongside Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, with a lot of jokes and the appearance of the entire Windows 95 development team on stage. It was a huge day for Microsoft with TV commercials blasting the Rolling Stones’ "Start Me Up" with images of the new Start button that we still (just about) use today. Microsoft even hired Jennifer Anniston and Matthew Perry to create an hour-long cyber sitcom all about Windows 95, and the software was so popular that 7 million copies were sold during the first five weeks.

Windows 95 Ad

Windows 95 Kickoff with Execs dancing to the Rolling Stones