Matthew Garrett checked into a London hotel and discovered that the proprietors had decided that “light switches are unfashionable and replaced them with a series of Android tablets.” (more…)
See more here:
Hotel’s Android-based lightswitches are predictably, horribly insecure
“We don’t like our car bumping into things, ” said Chris Urmson, head of Google’s self-driving project, addressing the February 14 incident where Google’s car struck a bus . “This was a tough day for us.” Read more…
Original post:
What Google’s Self-Driving Car Team Learned From Hitting That Bus
mmoorebz writes: Netflix is known as a place to binge watch television, but behind the scenes, there’s a lot that goes on before everyone’s favorite show can be streamed. The first step to deploying an application or service is building. Netflix created Nebula, a set of plugins for the Gradle build system, that “help with the heavy-lifting around building applications, ” said the engineers. Once the code has been built and tested locally using Nebula, the team pushes the updated source code to a Git repository. Every deployment at Neflix begins with the creation of an Amazon Machine Image, and to generate them from source, Netflix created what it calls “the Bakery.” It exposes an API that facilitates the creation of AMIs globally, according to the blog. When it comes time to deploy and after the “baking” is complete, teams will use Spinnaker to manage multi-region deployments, canary releases, and red/black deployments. Netflix is continuing to look at the developer experience and determine how it can improve. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read More:
An Inside Look At How Netflix Builds Code
Science_afficionado writes to note that the FDA “has approved a powered lower-limb exoskeleton created by a team of Vanderbilt engineers and commercialized by the Parker Hannifin Corporation for both clinical and personal use in the United States.” Indego, which allows people paralyzed below the waist to stand up and walk, is the result of an intensive, 10-year effort. The initial development was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The device acts like an external skeleton as it straps in tightly around the torso. Rigid supports are strapped to the legs and extend from the hip to the knee and from the knee to the foot. The hip and knee joints are driven by computer-controlled electric motors powered by advanced batteries. The device operates a lot like a Segway with legs and the minimalist design allows users to take it on and off while sitting in a wheelchair. Indego’s clearance came after completion of the largest exoskeleton clinical trial conducted in the United States. It has been available in Europe since November, when it received the CE Mark, the European Union’s equivalent of FDA approval. The initial price is $80, 000. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
See original article:
FDA Approves Indego Exoskeleton For Clinical And Personal Use
Last year Industrial Light & Magic teased an HTC Vive VR tie-in experience (the old teaser clip is embedded after the break) to go along with The Force Awakens and to celebrate the launch of its ILM Experience Lab . It appears its release was delayed along with the headset, but now that it’s rolling out, we should see it soon. Earlier this evening a short YouTube teaser for Star Wars: Trials on Tattooine appeared on the ILMVisualFX YouTube channel before going private, and it showed something that appeared to go beyond the Jakku Spy experience that appeared last year for Google Cardboard. It flashed a glimpse at the Vive headset, along with a VR trip in the Star Wars universe featuring everything from R2-D2 to player-controlled lightsaber battles. These screenshots should give you an idea of what this Cinematic Virtual Reality Experiment will be like, now we’re just waiting to hear when it will be available. [Thanks, Anonymous!] Source: ILMVisualFX (YouTube)
Link:
A ‘Star Wars’ VR experiment is coming soon to HTC Vive
An anonymous reader writes: A group of former Skype technologists, backed by the co-founder of the messaging platform, has introduced a new version of its own messaging service that promises end-to-end encryption for all conversations, including by video. Wire, a 50-person start-up mostly made up of engineers, is stepping into a global political debate over encryption that pits privacy against security advocates, epitomized by the standoff between the U.S. government and Apple. Wire, which is headquartered in Switzerland and Germany, two of the most privacy-friendly countries in the world, relays communications through its network of cloud computers where user communications are stored, in encrypted form, on their own devices. It delivers privacy protections that are always on, even when callers use multiple devices, such as a phone or desktop PC simultaneously. For voice and video calls, Wire uses the same DTLS and SRTP encryption standards found in the peer-to-peer WebRTC protocol. Rivals such as Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp or Telegram offer encryption on only parts of a message’s journey or for a specific set of services, the company said. “Everything is end-to-end encrypted: That means voice and video calls, texts, pictures, graphics — all the content you can send, ” Wire Executive Chairman Janus Friis told Reuters. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read this article:
Skype Co-Founder Launches End-To-End Encrypted ‘Wire’ App
Have you ever wondered why American restaurants don’t have those adorable Japanese food displays of meals that look ridiculously realistic? As it turns out, it may be for a multitude of cultural and economical reasons. In this recently released video by Great Big Story , we get an intimate tour into the factory that makes over half of the food craft displays found in Japan. I always assumed that these had to be made by machine, but apparently fake food products made by machines aren’t likely to pass as the real deal, so these factories hire highly proficient Japanese artists with years of training (one man in this video has worked at this factory for 36 years!). Another thing I never realized was the high value of these pieces, which becomes much more clear after a look into the painstaking process of making them—individual pieces sometimes take up to 3 hours or more and can cost as much as $1000 a pop. In the spirit of Friday, I’ve decided to attach a few more detailed looks into the faux food manufacturing process. Like this plastic magically being formed into lettuce: Also, an artfully detailed tour of one of the factories that’s actually from Wim Wenders’ 1985 documentary Tokyo-Ga :
Attention crackers – his Micronet password is 1234. “How to send an e mail 1980’s style. Electronic message writing down the phone line. First shown on Thames TV’s computer programme ‘Database’ in 1984”
Read the original post:
TV program shows to send an email in 1984
A team of Japanese scientists has discovered a bacteria that’s evolved to break down and consume PET—one of the world’s most environmentally damaging plastics. Read more…
View article:
Scientists Have Discovered a Bacteria That’s Evolved to Eat Plastic
McGruber writes with this story from the Chicago Tribune: Last Fall, certified public accountant Dennis Nicholl boarded a Chicago subway train while carrying a plastic bag of Old Style beer. Nicholl popped open a beer and looked around the car, scowling as he saw another rider talking on a cellphone. He pulled out a black device from his pocket and switched it on. Commuters who had been talking on their phones went silent, checking their screens for the source of their dropped calls. On Tuesday, undercover officers arrested Nicholl. Cook County prosecutors and Chicago police allege he created his own personal ‘quiet car’ on the subway by using an illegal device he imported from China. He was charged with unlawful interference with a public utility, a felony. This is not the first time Nicholl has been charged with jamming cell calls. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in June 2009, according to court records. He was placed under court supervision for a year, and his equipment was confiscated and destroyed. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Original post:
Chicagoan Arrested For Using Cell-phone Jammer To Make Subway Commute Tolerable