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    7/16/2015

    New Horizons Pluto

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    New Horizons




    Pluto Discovery Image
    Date: 18 Feb 1930
    Copy of sections of the original glass plates on which Pluto was discovered. The arrows show Pluto's movement against the background stars. Clyde Tombaugh discovered the icy world by blinking the plates back and forth on a machine called a blink comparator.
    Note: This image is property of the Lowell Observatory Archives. Any public use requires written permission of the Lowell Observatory Archives.
    Credit: Lowell Observatory Archives

    Pluto shows its spots to Nasa probe







    The science team on the American New Horizons mission to Pluto has released two colour views of the dwarf planet and its biggest moon, Charon.


    They were made by combining pictures from the probe’s high-resolution, “black and white” camera, Lorri, and its lower-resolution, colour imager known as Ralph.


    The difference in hue between Pluto and Charon is clear.
    But what catches the eye are four dark spots on the 2,300km-wide dwarf planet.
    Each spot is about 500km across. Quite why they should be so similar in size and spacing is not clear.
    Their dominant placing is on the hemisphere that New Horizons will not see during its close flyby on 14 July.

    However, there should be ample opportunity to study them in the days leading up to the encounter.
    “It’s a real puzzle - we don’t know what the spots are, and we can’t wait to find out,” said New Horizons principal investigator, Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute.
    “Also puzzling is the longstanding and dramatic difference in the colours and appearance of Pluto compared to its darker and greyer moon Charon.”

    If, as scientists think, Pluto and Charon are the products of a collision between two primitive bodies in the early Solar System, one might expect them to look more similar.
    New Horizon’s flyby data will hopefully provide the answer.
    The US space agency (Nasa) mission is now closing in on Pluto and its five moons.
    The moment of closest approach on the 14th will take place at 11:49 GMT, when the probe is just 12,500km above the surface.



    It is moving too fast - at 13.7km/s - to go into orbit, and it will simply scream past the dwarf and its satellites, gathering as much data as it can.
    No pictures will be sent back to Earth on the day itself; the spacecraft will be too busy executing its pre-programmed observation campaign.
    Instead, the first images from the flyby should be presented on the following day, on 15 July.
    Controllers have decided not to alter the course of the probe.
    They had been looking for icy debris in the vicinity of Pluto that might pose a collision hazard, but could find nothing obvious.
    New Horizons was commanded to make a thruster burn earlier this week, to speed it up ever so slightly.
    This will ensure the spacecraft reaches a precise point in space and time to carry out the pre-programmed observation sequence.
    The probe must spin around to take pictures of all the different targets, and if its navigation is off by even a small amount it will be looking in the wrong direction at the critical moment.
    On Thursday, New Horizons was just under 15 million km from Pluto, but 4.7 billion km from Earth.
    The vast distance to the probe's home world means a radio signal takes about 4.5 hours from sending to receipt.





    5/14/2015

    The Terminator Google’s Army READY

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    The Terminator Google’s Army READY












    Boston Dynamics
    Posted by Boston Dynamics on Sunday, 3 August 2014

    Boston Dynamics
    Posted by Boston Dynamics on Saturday, 6 December 2014
    Boston Dynamics
    Posted by Boston Dynamics on Saturday, 17 May 2014
    US Dynamics Cheetah !*Boston Dynamics
    Posted by Boston Dynamics on Wednesday, 14 May 2014
    Boston Dynamics
    Posted by Boston Dynamics on Friday, 20 December 2013
    -------------------------
    Google’s latest acquisition is one of the most advanced robotics companies in the world, and makes robots for the US military.


    Google’s recent acquisition of Boston Dynamics marks its eighth robotics purchase in the past six months, showing Google’s “moonshot” robotics vision is more than just a pet project.
    Boston Dynamics is the most high-profile acquisition, however, instantly adding world-leading robotics capability, including robots that can walk all on their own, to Google’s arsenal – as well as significant links to the US military – conjuring images of Skynet and the artificial intelligence-led robot uprising straight out of the 1984 film The Terminator.

    What is it?

    Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics design company that works across a wide range of computer intelligence and simulation systems, as well as large, advanced robotic platforms.
    The company was created as a technology spin-off from Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Prof Marc Raibert in 1992, then the founder and lead researcher of the Leg Lab – a research group focussed on systems that move dynamically, including legged robots.

    What does it do?

    Raibert describes the Boston Dynamics team as “simply engineers that build robots”, but in reality Boston Dynamics is much more than that.
    Its robotics work is at the forefront of the technology creating the self-proclaimed “most advanced robots on Earth” particularly focused around self-balancing humanoid or bestial robots.
    Funding for the majority of the most advanced Boston Dynamics robots comes from military sources, including the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and the US army, navy and marine corps. The terms of contracts currently held by Boston Dynamics with military bodies are unknown, althoughGoogle has committed to honouring existing contracts, including recent $10.8m funding from Darpa.

    What else has Google got?

    Boston Dynamics is not the only robotics company Google has bought in recent years. Put under the leadership of Andy Rubin, previously Google's head of Android, the search company has quietly acquired seven different technology companies to foster a self-described “moonshot” robotics vision.
    The acquired companies included Schaft, a small Japanese humanoid robotics company; Meka and Redwood Robotics, San Francisco-based creators of humanoid robots and robot arms; Bot & Dolly who created the robotic camera systems recently used in the movie Gravity; Autofuss an advertising and design company; Holomni, high-tech wheel designer, and Industrial Perception, a startup developing computer vision systems for manufacturing and delivery processes.
    Sources told the New York Times that Google’s initial plans are not consumer-focused, instead aimed at manufacturing and industry automation, although products are expected within the next three to five years.
    Rubin, before making Android into a mobile powerhouse, started life as a robotics engineer at Zeiss. He has now convinced Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to fund a commercial robotics venture, something Rubin has been mulling for some 10 years.

    Robotic cars

    Google is no stranger to robots. Its robotic car project, which kicked off in 2009, is one of the leaders in the field. It currently has a fleet of at least 10 converted Toyota Priuses, which have covered more than 300,000 miles on Californian roads without incident.
    The robotic cars have roof-mounted cameras and sensors that monitor the road ahead and its surroundings, building a 3D model of the route and navigating obstacles.
    In 2012, a blind man names Steve Mahan was allowed behind the wheel of a Google self-driving car in Morgan Hill, California.


    Presently, most of these robots are controlled externally and don't demonstrate any real intelligence. But when combined with the AI systems now rapidly exploding in complexity and intelligence -- Ray Kurzweil insists AI systems will be smarter than humans by 2029 -- you have the perfect recipe for a walking, thinking, calculating "Terminator" robot that's ready to commit mass genocide against humanity.



    Who will control these robots? Google, of course, the same corporation that spies on all your email, searches and web surfing behavior. Google is now being called the "evil empire" of the modern world, and many are convinced the corporation intends to pursue an agenda of global domination at every level: technology, social engineering, robotics and militarization.




    Humanity's defense: Guns and EMP

    What is humanity's defense against the rise of the robots? Firearms and EMP weapons, it turns out. Making robots bulletproof is very difficult to achieve, as they would become too heavy to carry out their tasks with efficiency. While robots could be outfitted with Kevlar vests, there are more than enough sniper rifles in the hands of everyday Americans -- especially across the hunting industry -- to take out millions of robots with high-velocity rounds and long ranges.



    EMP weapons, too, can disable robots unless they are hardened against EMP attacks. EMP weapons were depicted in The Matrix sci-fi film as a key weapon against the search-and-destroy "Squiddies" that stalked humans and destroyed their transport craft. In order to survive for the long term, humans would have to seek out and destroy the robotfactories that keep churning out the Terminators. They might also cut off the supply of power or raw materials to the factories by sabotaging supply lines.



    In the original Terminator film, future humans managed to invent a time machine that could send a naked human into the past to reshape the course of events. Kyle Reese was transported to 1984 -- a year of really bad punk fashion -- to protect future military leader John Conner, who was being hunted by a Terminator also sent back in time.



    While Google hasn't yet created a time machine, it's getting frighteningly close to the Terminator android robots depicted in the film of the same name. Once achieved, this willgive a corporation the military might of the Pentagon. Essentially, Google would be the first corporation in the world to raise its own private combat army.



    Survival of the human race may soon depend on humanity's ability to disable or destroy armies of corporate-controlled robots programmed to terminate human life. Don't search for how to accomplish this on Google.com, or you will be scheduled for termination.

    RHex Rough-Terrain Robot


    Petman Tests Camo

    Introducing WildCat


    6/10/2014

    #Google glass

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    Learn everything about Google Glass including the latest news, Glassware updates, new Explorer Stories, how to keep in touch, and more.





    3/02/2014

    Largest single personal data hack ever? 360mn stolen account credentials found online

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    A cyber security firm has reported a “mind boggling” cache of stolen credentials which has been put up for sale on online black markets. A total of 360 million accounts were affected in a series of hacks, one of which seems to be the biggest in history.

    Alex Holden, chief information security officer of Hold Security LLC, said that the firm had uncovered the data over the past three weeks.

    He said that 360 million personal account records were obtained in separate attacks, but one single attack seems to have obtained some 105 million records which could make it the biggest single data breach to date, Reuters reports. “The sheer volume is overwhelming,” said Holden in a statement on Tuesday.

    “These mind boggling figures are not meant to scare you and they are a product of multiple breaches which we are independently investigating. This is a call to action,” he added.

    Hold Security said that as well as 360 million credentials, hackers were also selling 1.25 billion email addresses, which may be of interest to spammers.

    The huge treasure trove of personal details includes user names, which are most often email addresses, and passwords, which in most cases are unencrypted.

    Hold Security uncovered a similar breach in October last year, but the tens of millions of records had encrypted passwords, which made them much more difficult for hackers to use.

    “In October 2013, Hold Security identified the biggest ever public disclosure of 153 million stolen credentials from Adobe Systems Inc. One month later we identified another large breach of 42 million credentials from Cupid Media,”     Hold Security said in statement.

    Holden said he believes that in many cases the latest theft has yet to be publically reported and that the companies that have been attacked are unaware of it. He added that he will notify the companies concerned as soon as his staff has identified them. 

    “We have staff working around the clock to identify the victims,”     he said. 

    However, he did say that the email addresses in question are from major providers such as AOL Inc, Google Inc, Yahoo Inc, and Microsoft Corp, as well as “almost all” Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations. 

    Heather Bearfield, who runs cybersecurity for an accounting firm Marcum LLP, told Reuters that while she had no information about Hold Security’s findings, she believed that it was quite plausible as hackers can do more with stolen credentials than they can with stolen credit cards, as people often use the same login and password for many different accounts. 

    “They can get access to your actual bank account. That is huge. That is not necessarily recoverable funds,”she said. 

    The latest revelation by Hold Security comes just months after the US retailer Target announced that 110 million of their customers had their data stolen by hackers. Target and the credit and debit card companies concerned said that consumers do not bear much risk as funds are rapidly refunded in fraud losses.

    Reuters / Kacper Pempel

    2/09/2014

    The Anti-Social Network

    Comment
    Bob Dylan once sang, “The times they are a changing.”
    I once sang, “I’ve got a combine harvester, it’s made out of kitchen spoons, and that’s why you’re a poo.”

    Despite Bob’s bad grammar, he had a point and, somewhere, so do I. Because if I was a 10 year-old 
in this day and age, I probably would have tweeted that beautiful nonsensical serenade, or uploaded a video of it onto Youtube.
    The recent birth of my sister’s human child got me brooding over the time and age that we are in, and how, at no point in the history of our planet, have events ever been recorded 
with such personable accuracy.
    I mean, if only we could look back on John Wilkes Booth’s tweets and read, “Lol your beard is well 
silly, man, Imma kill you.” Or see George Michael’s FB status as “Interested in: Men.” Everything 
would have been different.
    My brother-in-law decided to set up a Facebook account for my baby niece on her first day of life, with the idea that at some point down the line – especially with the
 new FB timelines – they could pass on the account to her for her own use. She would have a log of her whole life, right there for her to see, from conception to inevitable dysfunction.
    This got me thinking about one day when I poop out a little Timmy, or however that shit works. 
Would he not be curious about daddy’s wanderlusting? I dread the thought that someday, at the 
click of a button, he would know everything there is to know about me. How would my kid
 respect me after seeing me wasted in a pile of my own vomit on the floor, swearing at the camera 
with knickers round my face? “Mummy, Mummy who is that girl daddy’s with?”
    I cringe at the idea of my kids going through my pseudo-diary Twitter account, piecing together who I was and who they may become. Thankfully, my tweets are made up of random, surreal thoughts 
and seem like gibberish to the naked eye so the worst they can think of me is that I had Aspergers 
or something.
    But I’ve come to a little gem of a realisation. In 10 or 20 years time, when we’ve all grown up and
 had Facebook for most of our lives and then reproduce, does this mean the end of social networking? 
I mean unless you’re a fucking hippy, how do you expect to educate your kids about  right and 
wrong when their main influencers are seen doing and saying all the wrong things on a platform 
as accessible to them as a jar of cookies? This will probably lead, at some point within the next
 10 years, to a mass privatising of accounts. Once we’re done with airing our dirty laundry in our 
rebellious years, we’re going to want to neatly fold it and put it at the back of our closets, with a
 child-proof lock on the door. The less accessible information available, the less users will sign up and eventually it 
becomes the anti-social network.
    Could that be the end of Facebook as we know it? Makes a bit of
 sense doesn’t it?
    Then again, by then we may all be telepathically connected to the internet and each other, and you
 won’t even have to open your eyes to see my rendition of Combine Harvester.KitchenSpoons.Poo.

    6/07/2013

    #Twitter notably absent from #NSA #PRISM list







    Twitter was notably missing from a leaked list of Internet giants reported to be cooperating with The National Security Agency and the FBI on the surveillance program dubbed PRISM.
    Those agencies are siphoning data from the servers of nine U.S. Internet companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple, according to news reports about the documents. The cloud storage device Dropbox was described as "coming soon," along with other unidentified firms.
    Google and Apple have both denied any knowledge of PRISM. Apple stated "any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order." Google said "we disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully.
    There may be two explanations for Twitter's absence.
    Twitter has a history of noncompliance and fighting information requests against its users. That may, in part, explain its absence from the list of companies disclosed Thursday. The leaks were reported by The Washington Post and The Guardian.
    --> The microblogging service notably defended Malcolm Harris last year. He was being prosecuted by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office on allegations of disorderly conduct related to an Occupy Wall Street protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.
    In that instance, Twitter filed a motion in state court in New York in an effort to quash a court order asking it to turn over his communications on Twitter.
    "As we've said many times before, Twitter users own their Tweets. They have a right to fight invalid government requests, and we stand with them in that fight. We appealed the Harris decision because it didn't strike the right balance between the rights of users and the interests of law enforcement," said Twitter spokesman Jim Prosser.
    --> -->
    Twitter is also currently embroiled in another legal skirmish to uphold the rights of user privacy. It's fighting a battle in France to not turn over information about users connected to complaints from a private French Jewish students group regarding anti-Semitic content.
    Twitter's Prosser points out that the company tries to be transparent with its semi-annual Transparency Report on government requests.
    Another explanation for Twitter's absense is that the bulk of its data — aside from direct messages — is publicly available in the form of tweets. That separates it from the likes of Yahoo and Google, which house years of personal emails and data on people.





    4/11/2013

    How #Gmail Has Evolved Over the Years #gmail



    How Gmail Has Evolved Over the Years



    Gmail turned 9 this month, and before we know it, it will be heading off to middle school. It's grown up fast. In fact, it knows 57 languages now — the latest one being Cherokee.
    Google's email platform has greatly evolved since its inception, with a lot of user feedback taken into account.
    "Gmail was inspired by one user’s feedback that she was tired of struggling to find emails buried deep in her inbox," the company said on its official blog. "So we built a new email that leveraged the power of Google Search. You told us you were tired of spam, so we set to tackling that, and today your feedback makes it possible for Gmail to filter out well over 99% of incoming spam."


    The company posted on Wednesday an infographic outlining how it's changed in time.
    We almost forgot we had to wait a whole two years for GChat. Not to mention you had to be invited to sign up for an account by an existing user for the first three years. And although Gmail got its first Android app in 2009, the site didn't officially leave its beta test phase that same year.
    For a full look at how the platform has evolved, check out the infographic below (click to enlarge) and let us know in the comments what you'd like to see from Gmail in the future.


    Mashable composite, images via iStockphoto, kemie, and logo courtesy of Google
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