Samsung Knew Note 7 Had A Dangerous Design, But Took The Risk
Anyway, Say Analysts
… according to a respected independent team of hardware engineers who
cracked open a Note 7 for a test recently, they've concluded that the phone's
tendency to combust is due to a "fundamental problem with the design
of the phone," and that Samsung sort of knew the "super
aggressive" design was risky, but went with it anyway because it was
trying so hard to innovate and gain a competitive edge.
(Related) There are way too many laws!
Did the guy at Ohio State tell social media he was going
to start stabbing people? First I’ve
heard that.
Boston Police Plan to Monitor Internet for Threats Draws
Criticism
The Boston Police Department is taking heat from civil
liberty groups for plans to spend up to $1.4 million on new software that
scours social media and the internet for potential threats.
The attack Monday on the Ohio State University
campus is just the latest illustration of why local law enforcement authorities
need every tool they can muster to stop terrorism and other violence before it
starts, according to Boston Police Commissioner William Evans.
Monitoring technology can quickly mine the internet, from
chat rooms to social media to blog posts, for certain keywords and phrases. It can track postings in a certain geographic
area, send alerts to police about potentially dangerous postings and more. Law-enforcement officials say the technology
allows them to more quickly and efficiently spot possible red flags in near
real-time.
… A Facebook post by the suspect Abdul Razak
Ali Artan before the attack suggested
he was angry over what he perceived as mistreatment of Muslims, but
didn’t express loyalty to a specific group or ideology, according to people
familiar with the case.
Will we even notice an impact from this law?
It will soon be illegal to punish customers who criticize
businesses online
Congress has passed a law protecting the right of US
consumers to post negative online reviews without fear of retaliation from
companies.
The bipartisan Consumer Review Fairness Act
was passed by unanimous consent in the US Senate yesterday, a Senate Commerce
Committee announcement said.
The bill, introduced
in 2014, was already approved by the House of Representatives and now
awaits President Obama's signature.
For my Software Architecture students. Why, “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley.”
Report – The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse
Than You Think
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Dec 4, 2016
Jakob
Nielsen on November 13, 2016. “Summary: Across 33 rich countries, only 5%
of the population has high computer-related abilities, and only a third of
people can complete medium-complexity tasks. One of
usability’s most hard-earned lessons is that you are not the user. This is why it’s a disaster to guess at the users’ needs.
Since designers are so different from
the majority of the target audience, it’s not just irrelevant what you like or
what you think is easy to use — it’s often misleading to rely on such personal
preferences. For sure, anybody who works
on a design project will have a more accurate and detailed mental model of the user interface than an
outsider. If you target a broad consumer
audience, you will also have a higher IQ than your average user, higher literacy levels, and, most
likely, you’ll be younger and experience less age-driven degradation of your abilities than many
of your users. There is one more
difference between you and the average user that’s even more damaging to your
ability to predict what will be a good user interface: skills in using
computers, the Internet, and technology in general. Anybody who’s on a web-design team or other
user experience project is a veritable supergeek compared with the average
population. This not just true for the
developers. Even the less-technical team
members are only “less-technical” in comparison with the engineers. They still have much stronger technical skills
than most normal people…”
So, is Uber a ride-sharing company or a technology
company?
Uber Bets on Artificial Intelligence With Acquisition and New
Lab
Uber envisions a future in which a fleet of vehicles can
make the most complex maneuvers while carting passengers around without
the help of a driver. To achieve
that, cars will need to get a whole lot smarter.
Enter Gary Marcus
and Zoubin Ghahraman. The two men are
being appointed as co-directors of Uber’s new in-house research arm on
artificial intelligence, which the ride-hailing company unveiled on Monday. The research arm’s aim is to apply A.I. in
areas like self-driving vehicles, along with solving other technological
challenges through machine learning.
Another car company struggling to catch up to Uber. They even have a good reason to do it.
Here's How BMW Plans to Outpace Uber
BMW will test autonomous vehicles in Munich next year as
it seeks to keep up with ride-hailing firms like Uber, which have spent
billions on pay-per-use personal transport.
The German carmaker will have about 40 vehicles with
self-driving functions in Munich’s inner city and then expand the project to
other cities, BMW executives said on Friday.
“There is a trained test driver behind the wheel of every
car,” Klaus Buettner, BMW’s Vice President in charge of Autonomous Driving
said.
Uber’s rapid growth has prompted BMW to
consider how autonomous vehicles may help them accelerate their own push into
pay-per-use transport.
… “Ride hailing is
nothing more than manual autonomous driving,” Tony Douglas, Head of Strategy
for BMW’s mobility services said. “Once you dispense with the driver you have a license
to print money.”
Another tech transformation.
Capital One rides the cloud to tech company transformation
The Fortune 500 company, one of the top
10 largest banks in the U.S. with $313 billion in total assets, wants to be
a tech company that also is a top financial services provider.
… "We need to
be a high-productivity software engineering organization," Alexander said
in an interview with Computerworld at this week's AWS re:Invent
conference. "The winners in banking are going to be really great technology
companies. It didn't use to
be the case historically that you really needed to be a great software
development company and a great analytics company, but it's really important
today."
Geeking out your car?
Automotive Tech Flying Off the Lot
Panasonic is taking
another spin on the automotive-technology highway, and investors should take note.
The Japanese electronics company plans to buy
car-component maker ZKW Group for ¥100 billion ($881 million), according to The
Wall Street Journal. The Austrian
company is a leading supplier of automotive lights for car makers such as Audi and BMW.
Headlamps may not sound like the sexiest part in a car,
but innovations are popping up even there. A matrix of LED lights controlled by a front
camera, for example, can allow cars to maintain high-beam headlights without
blinding other road users by turning parts of the light off when there is
oncoming traffic. A headlight could also
send targeted light at potential hazards detected by a night-vision system, say
a pedestrian crossing the road in the dark.
It is precisely such redesigning of boring old auto parts
that has kicked up a flurry of deals in the space, long before futuristic
self-driving vehicles arrive.
Gosh, I could be on double-secret probation and not even
know it!
The New Era of Secret Law
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Dec 4, 2016
Brennan Center for Justice – New Report: “Secret Law”
Governs Key Aspects of National Security Policy – “At least 74 opinions, memoranda, and letters issued by the
Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) between 2002 and 2009 on
core post-9/11 national security topics, including intelligence activities and
the detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects, remain entirely classified, according to a new report by the Brennan
Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. OLC’s advice is legally binding on the
executive branch in the same way a court order would be. OLC opinions are just one component of an
unprecedented buildup of secret law created by the federal government since
9/11 through a range of unpublished legal rules and opinions – all issued
without public scrutiny or input – that govern policies affecting the lives and
liberties of U.S. citizens. Relying
partly on new data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, the
Brennan Center’s report, The New
Era of Secret Law, concludes
that secret law is prevalent throughout all three branches of government.
Along with OLC opinions, the report
examines classified rulings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
(known as the “FISA Court”), secret presidential directives, unpublished
regulations, redacted opinions in regular federal courts, agreements with
foreign nations, closed immigration proceedings, and even classified provisions
of legislation…”
For my students.
Design matters, even in the little things.
Fukushima reactor briefly loses cooling during inspection
One of the melted reactors at the tsunami-hit Fukushima
nuclear power plant had a temporary loss of cooling Monday when a worker accidentally bumped a switch while
passing through a narrow isle of switch panels during an inspection and turned
off the pumping system.
The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said
cooling for the No. 3 reactor, one of the three that melted following the 2011
earthquake and tsunami, was out for
nearly an hour before a backup pump kicked in.
Perspective.
Amazon cloud demands massive on-the-ground infrastructure
… Here’s one way
to look at it: Every single day,
Amazon’s cloud-computing business adds enough server capacity to support the
data-storage and computing needs that the online tech giant had in 2005, when
it had revenue of $8.5 billion. That’s
about the revenue of a middling Fortune 500 company.
… Another way of
measuring it: As of December, AWS either rented or owned about 6.7 million
square feet of space, or the equivalent of some 116 football fields.
Artificial intelligence for my students, even if they don’t
have the natural kind…
Elon Musk's OpenAI and Google's DeepMind release their AI
playgrounds to everyone
Artificial intelligence developed by the likes of Google's
DeepMind and Elon Musk's OpenAI is taught within the confines of game worlds –
including navigating around mazes, dodging deadly cliffs, playing laser tag and
flying through space.
In a mission to build a general AI
capable of solving any problem put in front of it, DeepMind is open-sourcing its game code to everyone. The software and 14 levels from DeepMind Labs
will be put on GitHub later this
week.
And, not to be outdone, Elon Musk's own OpenAI is also
releasing its own 'computer training ground' called Universe. Universe is
open-source software that supports Gym; OpenAI's toolkit for testing
its algorithms which help software play games, for example, using a reward
scheme.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” In this case, DigitalTrends doth.
Tech is upending the ways we write, speak, and even think
When you look back a decade,
it’s easy to feel that little has changed. Sure, you had a different job back then, there
were other shows on TV, and no one had described your shoes as “on fleek” just
yet, but what’s different, really? Yet
when asked to think about the year 2006, most people today would probably
Google it on a smartphone.
See, right then and there, you have your answer:
Smartphones changed everything.
Yes, I run you over, but I still enjoy playing with
you? Miller is a nicer guy than his
victims think!
Von Miller gives every player in AFC West custom bottle of
wine, thank you note
… On the label of
each bottle is an orange outline of eye-glasses, Miller’s signature accessory,
and his autograph. And shipped with each was a note that read:
It is an honor and a
privilege to take the field and compete with you twice a year. We are so fortunate to have this opportunity
to fulfill our childhood dreams of playing in the NFL. The blood, sweat, aches and pains, and endless
hours spent watching film are a testament to the love and dedication we have
for this game. So take a moment, reflect
on all your successes, and enjoy your accomplishment. Appreciate those who have helped you get this
far, and start working towards your next childhood dream.
Thank you for helping to make
our game great!
— Von Miller
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