Friday, April 5, 2019

Tech News

Mashable: Microsoft partners with BMW for "smart factory" systems.

And, BMW's riderless bike (it takes a moment for the clip to load):

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Tech Talks: AI can read and text can be weaponized.
“When people see typos right now, they don’t think it’s a security issue. But in the near future, it might be something we will have to contend with,” Stephen Merity, AI researcher and expert on machine learning–based language models, told me in a call last week.

And there’s ample reason to take his warnings seriously. In recent findings, scientists at IBM Research, Amazon and the University of Texas have proven that small modifications to text content can alter the behavior of AI algorithms while remaining unnoticeable to human readers.
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Extreme Tech: Three stickers will make an autonomous Tesla veer into oncoming traffic.
Keen Security researchers reverse-engineered the software Tesla uses to see how easy it would be to fool those sensors. They didn’t need to make any changes to the car’s software — this is not a hack. They simply used three small reflective stickers on the roadway to trick Autopilot into thinking the lane had merged when it hadn’t.
I'd imagine covering exterior sensors on the car with duct tape would also put a big dent into Tesla's "autonomy".
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UbergizmoBurger King's Non-Beef Whopper.
[Burger King] is staking its reputation on [a no beef patty], saying that the taste is identical to its beef patty.
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It’s a protein that’s cultivated from soybean roots that can mimic the texture of meat.
It's not a real Whopper, then.

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Ubergizmo: Fake alcohol; get the buzz but never drunk.
[S]cientist David Nutt’s...synthetic alcohol can allow drinkers to experience everything they enjoy about having a drink but not worry about getting a hangover. Nutt told the Guardian that he can design his synthetic alcohol molecule to interact with the body in a way that doesn’t induce any of the negative side effects.

Ars TechniaStudy finds there is "something special" about Tennessee whiskey.
Scientists are beginning to unlock the scientific secrets of what makes so-called "Tennessee whiskey" so distinct from other whiskeys, bourbons, and similar spirits[.]
The success of Tennessee Whiskey has to have something to do with this guy, if only for his guile and name.
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Ars TechniaGoogle's product shut-downs are damaging its brand.
We are 91 days into the year, and so far, Google is racking up an unprecedented body count. If we just take the official shutdown dates that have already occurred in 2019, a Google-branded product, feature, or service has died, on average, about every nine days.
EngadgetAfter eight years, Google+ is dead.

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Where previous soft robots have still required components like metal valves, this latest soft robot can function using only rubber and air — with pressurized air replacing the need for electronic innards. In doing so, it integrates memory and decision-making directly into its soft materials, using a kind of digital logic-based soft computer.
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C|Net: The ethical issues of smart home cameras and facial recognition.
You might gain the peace of mind that comes with knowing who's at the door, but it could come at the cost of compromising your loved ones' privacy by sending their biometric data back to manufacturers or even hackers.
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Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) is the oldest legislation and the strictest. It regulates how biometric information is collected, stored, used and even destroyed. Texas followed a year later with the Texas Biometric Privacy Law, while Washington signed its own state House Bill 1493 two years ago.
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When a homeowner adds facial recognition technology, multiple relationships come into play.

"There are deep ethical questions," [said Betsy Cooper, director of the Aspen Policy Hub]. "Because while the relationship between the individual and the person crossing their threshold is clear, the relationship between the person crossing the threshold and all those other companies and actors is less clear."
Tech TalksLaw firms, the digital age and the impact of Tech.
Lawyers need technology these days, but technology also needs lawyers.
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Algorithms shape how people interact with news and entertainment media and how they research civic issues on the internet, and there are new questions arising about citizens’ “digital civil rights.
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What happens when a city decides to ban facial recognition technology?
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Beta NewsLinux Fedora 30 Beta is here.
Fedora is the best overall Linux distribution.
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While Fedora maybe isn't the best distro for beginners, it should be the eventual choice for those that "level up" to being an experienced Linux user later.
As someone commented at the above link, it is unfortunate that Beta News didn't include any screenshots of Fedora 30. So, here's some. It's hot!

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