Archive for April, 2015
Guatemalans Deliberately Infected with STDs Sue Johns Hopkins University for $1 Billion
April 6th, 2015Via: Guardian: Nearly 800 plaintiffs have launched a billion-dollar lawsuit against Johns Hopkins University over its alleged role in the deliberate infection of hundreds of vulnerable Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis and gonorrhoea, during a medical experiment programme in the 1940s and 1950s. The lawsuit, which also names the philanthropic Rockefeller Foundation, alleges […]
Inexpensive Electric Cars Sooner Rather Than Later?
April 6th, 2015Via: MIT Technology Review: Electric cars may seem like a niche product that only wealthy people can afford, but a new analysis suggests that they may be close to competing with or even beating gas cars on cost. The true cost of lithium-ion batteries in electric cars is a secret closely held by manufacturers. And […]
Sea-Based X-Band Radar: Another Multi Billion Dollar Pentagon Boondoggle
April 5th, 2015Via: Los Angeles Times: Leaders of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency were effusive about the new technology. It was the most powerful radar of its kind in the world, they told Congress. So powerful it could detect a baseball over San Francisco from the other side of the country. If North Korea launched a sneak […]
Net Cafe Refugees: Japan’s Disposable Workers
April 3rd, 2015Via: YouTube:
Car Completes 99% of 3,400-Mile U.S. Road Trip in Autonomous Mode
April 3rd, 2015Via: AP: An autonomous car’s recent 3,400-mile U.S. road trip proves there’s at least one thing computers do better than humans: Follow the speed limit. Auto supplier Delphi Corp. fitted an Audi Q5 with radar, cameras and laser sensors to navigate the 15-state journey from San Francisco to New York, mostly traveling on highways. The […]
Yemen’s Shiite Rebels Capture Presidential Palace in Aden
April 2nd, 2015Via: CTV: Yemen’s Shiite rebels and their allies fought their way through the commercial centre of Aden on Thursday and seized the presidential palace on a strategic hilltop in this southern coastal city, security officials said. The capture was a major blow to the Saudi-led coalition, which has been carrying out airstrikes for a week […]
California Imposes First-Ever Mandatory Water Restrictions
April 2nd, 2015Via: Time: California’s governor issued unprecedented mandatory water restrictions for the entire state on Wednesday, in the face of a persistent drought that is growing dire. Governor Jerry Brown directed the State Water Resources Control Board to cut the state’s water usage by 25% by enacting a series of water-reduction practices, which could translate to […]
AI Interns: Software Already Taking Jobs from Humans
April 1st, 2015Via: New Scientist: Humans used to manually move data between the relevant systems to complete these tasks, copying a phone number from one database to another, for instance. The user still has to call up and speak to a human, but now an AI does the actual work. To train the AI, it watches and […]
Turkey Power Outage Shuts Down Public Transportation and Half of Provinces
April 1st, 2015Via: Guardian: A huge power cut has caused chaos and shut down public transport on Tuesday across Turkey, with the government refusing to rule out that the electricity system had been the victim of an attack. The nationwide power cut, the worst in 15 years, began about 10.36am in Istanbul, the state-run Anatolia news agency […]
Former Blackwater Gets Rich as Afghan Drug Production Hits Record High
April 1st, 2015Via: Guardian: In a war full of failures, the US counternarcotics mission in Afghanistan stands out: opiate production has climbed steadily over recent years to reach record-high levels last year. Yet there is a clear winner in the anti-drug effort – not the Afghan people, but the infamous mercenary company formerly known as Blackwater. Statistics […]
