Category Archives: Current Events

SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

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Once operational Crew Dragon missions are underway for NASA, SpaceX will launch the private mission on a journey to circumnavigate the moon and return to Earth. Lift-off will be from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Pad 39A near Cape Canaveral – the same launch pad used by the Apollo program for its lunar missions. This presents an opportunity for humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years and they will travel faster and further into the Solar System than any before them.

Source: SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year | SpaceX

CMU AI Is Tough Poker Player

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Libratus was developed by Computer Science Professor Tuomas Sandholm and his Ph.D. student, Noam Brown. Libratus is being used in this contest to play poker, an imperfect information game that requires the AI to bluff and correctly interpret misleading information to win. Ultimately programs like Libratus also could be used to negotiate business deals, set military strategy or plan a course of medical treatment — all cases that involve complicated decisions based on imperfect information.

Source: CMU AI Is Tough Poker Player | Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science

Tesla’s Autopilot Vindicated With 40% Drop in Crashes

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It turns out that, according to the data Tesla gave investigators, installing Autopilot prevents crashes—by an astonishing 40 percent.

Source: Tesla’s Autopilot Vindicated With 40% Drop in Crashes – Bloomberg

In October, the company began shipping new Autopilot hardware with enhanced sensors that it says will eventually enable fully autonomous driving. Every car now ships with eight cameras and a dozen sensors to give 360-degree visibility. The company is rolling out new features that make use of the sensor suite in regular over-the-air updates.

Rudy Giuliani is an absurd choice to defend the US from hackers

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While it’s amusing to make fun of Giuliani, hiring people with little or no bona fide security experience to head up cybersecurity practices in government is sadly a tried and true pastime in Washington. Instead of tapping actual computer security experts, politicians in many cases continue to put their friends or people they know in charge of a monumental problem that requires expertise beyond having many political connections or relationships with donors.

Source: Rudy Giuliani is an absurd choice to defend the US from hackers | Trevor Timm | Opinion | The Guardian

From:  Trump’s cyber-guru Giuliani runs ancient ‘easily hackable website’

“You can probably break into Giuliani’s server,” said Robert Graham of Errata Security. “I know this because other FreeBSD servers in the same data center have already been broken into, tagged by hackers, or are now serving viruses.

“But that doesn’t matter. There’s nothing on Giuliani’s server worth hacking.”

Norway to switch off FM radio in risky, unpopular shift to digital

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Norway is set to become the first nation to start switching off its FM radio network next week, in a risky and unpopular leap to digital technology that will be closely watched by other countries considering whether to follow suit.

Source: Norway to switch off FM radio in risky, unpopular shift to digital

For the same cost, digital radio in Norway allows eight times more radio stations than FM.

The AI “Master” bested the world’s top Go players

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But now even Ke, the reigning top-ranked Go player, has acknowledged that human beings are no match for robots in the complex board game, after he lost three games to an AI that mysteriously popped up online in recent days.

The AI turned out to be AlphaGo in disguise.

Source: The AI “Master” bested the world’s top Go players—and then revealed itself as Google’s AlphaGo in disguise — Quartz

Wall Street Ponders Verizon, Comcast Merger Under Trump

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For example, the elimination of Verizon would result in significantly less competition for Comcast in the Northeast United States. Currently, the Northeast is becoming one of the last places in the country Comcast hasn’t deployed usage caps, thanks in large part to Verizon’s FiOS domination of the coast. The end result of most of Hodulik’s scenarios would be higher rates and worse service for most consumers as Comcast gained a total monopoly in many east coast markets. Then again, Trump telecom advisor and former Sprint lobbyist Mark Jamison doesn’t believe telecom monopolies are real.

Source: Wall Street Ponders Verizon, Comcast Merger Under Trump | DSLReports, ISP Information

Trump Telecom Advisor Doesn’t Think Telecom Monopolies Are Real

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Former Sprint lobbyist Mark Jamison was named this week as one of two telecom consultants guiding the Trump administration’s telecom policy. Alongside telecom-tied think tanker Jeffrey Eisenach, Jamison is tasked with choosing the next FCC boss, and the direction of the new Trump FCC.

But in an October blog post, Jamison indicates he doesn’t believe that telecom monopolies are even real, while making it very clear (as Eisenach has) that the over-arching goal is to gut the FCC completely:

Source: Trump Telecom Advisor Doesn’t Think Telecom Monopolies Are Real

Schiaparelli Mars probe’s parachute ‘jettisoned too early’

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For the moment, all Esa has to work with is the relatively large volume of engineering data Schiaparelli managed to transmit back to the “mothership” that dropped it off at Mars – the Trace Gas Orbiter.

Source: Schiaparelli Mars probe’s parachute ‘jettisoned too early’ – BBC News

But officials here have tried to emphasise Schiaparelli’s role as a technology demonstrator – a project to give Europe the learning experience and the confidence to go ahead with the landing on Mars in 2021 of an ambitious six-wheeled rover.

Say hello to .google and other branded internet addresses

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Google’s website is at the fore of an expected boom in websites taking advantage of a 2-year-old change in internet rules that lifted the limits for these suffixes, called top-level domains. That’s brought .paris, .movie and .xyz to websites and email addresses.

Source: Say hello to .google and other branded internet addresses – CNET