Boeing CEO commits to the Mars program

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is aiming to start a Martian colony within the next decade, but another rival CEO says his company will actually be the one to put humans on the Red Planet first. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg recently answered questions at the "Whats Next" tech conference in Chicago, and when asked about the future of his company, he focused on breakthroughs in space travel. "I’m convinced that the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding on a Boeing rocket," said Muilenburg

Boeing has been in the space business for decades, as it has been one of NASA’s primary contractors since the space agency’s inception. The company built the first stage of the Saturn V rocket — which took astronauts to the Moon — and it has since contributed to the Space Shuttle program and crafted many elements of the International Space Station. Currently, Boeing is designing and developing the Space Launch System, the massive rocket that NASA wants to use to send people to Mars. So when Muilenburg says the first people will get to the planet with a Boeing rocket, he’s most likely referring to the SLS.



Credits:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/5/13178056/boeing-ceo-mars-colony-rocket-spacex-elon-musk

Amazon Echo and Google's Alexa ALWAYS listening

https://youtu.be/ue9M9Tc2C_4

Credits:
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/alexa-and-google-record-your-voice/?mbid=social_twitter

Uber tracks you 5 min after the ride

After Uber introduced a controversial app update that tracks users’ locations even when they’re not using the app, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading privacy group, has asked the company roll it back. In the updated version of its app, Uber offers users two options: you can either allow Uber to always track your location (though the company says it will only track users for five minutes after a ride ends), or you can turn off the app’s tracking entirely. That means you’d have to manually enter your pickup location when requesting rides.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has asked Uber to return to an option that allows users to only share their location while using the app – not afterward, Kurt Opsahl, deputy executive director and general counsel at EFF, told BuzzFeed News. An Uber spokeswoman told BuzzFeed News that by offering the option of manually entering pick-up locations, the company is giving users a choice to be tracked or not. But Opsahl says this “takes away a lot of the usability.” Part of Uber’s appeal is how easy it is to open the app and let GPS pinpoint your location for a driver.


Credits:
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/12/05/new-uber-feature/

Technology to stop poachers in Africa

WILDLIFE POACHERS WHO stalk endangered animals in East and South Africa have long operated under the cover of night. But lately not even a moonless sky is safe cover for stalking impalas, elephants, and rhinos. Now, the power of increasingly inexpensive infrared cameras, artificial intelligence, and drones are being used to stop illegal poaching. Rangers are rounding up veteran poachers in the middle of the night, says Colby Loucks, World Wildlife Fund’s senior director of wildlife crime technology, who ask, dumbfounded, “How are you finding me?'”

This spring, the World Wildlife Fund began deploying thermal sensing infrared technology from the imaging company FLIR to combat poaching in Kenya’s Maasai Mara Conservancy park—and at another secret location that’s home to rhinos, one of the most imperiled creatures on Earth. The technology, which detects a narrow sliver of the electro-magnetic spectrum of reflected or emitted heat, could become a critical tool in the fight to protect endangered species. Anything living appears as a white or grey blob on a screen or in a viewfinder, no light needed.

Credits:

https://www.wired.com/2016/11/watch-wildlife-rangers-use-thermal-imaging-nab-poachers/

Older Android accounts hacked

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