Technology
Technology
Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin wins contract with NASA to build spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon, means the company will get the second trip to the moon after NASA awarded Elon Musk's SpaceX the first trip scheduled for the end of the decade
Rocket launched from Esrange in Kiruna municipality lands in mountain range 15 kilometers into Norway after taking a longer and more westerly trajectory than expected, reached 250 kilometers altitude and was launched for weightlessness research, the space base is surrounded by landing area twice the size like Luxembourg
Elon Musk announces his ambition to launch an AI platform called TruthGPT as a competitor to ChatGPT, which he has criticized, among other things, for having closed source code, and last month he also registered a company called X.AI Corp.
OpenAI launches GPT-4, which is a more powerful update to ChatGPT, is a so-called multimodal model that in addition to text is able to respond to images, Microsoft is said to have used it in Bing Chat
Startup Make Sunsets says it has released its first two weather balloons full of sulfur aerosols into the atmosphere, the idea is to combat climate change by selling USD 10 cooling credits where each gram of sulfur particles offsets the impacts of 1 ton of carbon emissions, the company claims
Mullvad VPN launches hardware product Tillitis Key, a programmable USB key with enhanced security features, both software and hardware are open source
Teenager hacks Uber and announces it in company Slack channel, poses as IT worker from corporate in text message and convinces employee to send password giving him access, enabling him to access company VPN, scan the intranet, and find Powershell scripts containing credentials for multiple services, Uber warnes employees to stay away from Slack, but many keep logging back on to check out everyone's joke responses
Google fires engineer Blake Lemoine who despite lengthy engagement from the company maintained that the AI language technology Lamda is sentient, Google comments that Lemoine's claims are wholly unfounded and that they take the responsible development of AI very seriously, Lemoine who tested if the program used discriminatory or hate speech found that it showed self-awareness and could hold conversations about religion and emotions
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requests information from Tesla after 758 complaints regarding vehicles braking for no reason, demands access to all consumer and field reports about false braking as well as reports of crashes, injuries, deaths and property damage claims, also wants to know whether the Full Self-Driving system was active during any of the incidents, the problem reportedly might be connected to last year's decision to remove radar sensors from Model 3 and Model Y vehicles
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asks Tesla Inc for information about a recent 2021 Tesla Model Y fire in Vancouver where the driver had to smash a window to exit the vehicle as the doors did not open and the windows did not go down when the power stopped working
Hyundai and Kia tell owners of almost 500,000 cars and SUVs in the United States to park outside and away from buildings due to a possible anti-lock brake defect caused by foreign contaminants that can cause the vehicles to spontaneously catch fire, owners can safely continue driving the vehicles according to company info
Tesla recalls the "full self-driving" driver-assist feature from all 53,822 vehicles as the beta version in some scenarios intentionally slowly rolls through stop signs, no known accidents related to the feature
The Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission propose to absolve users of autonomous cars of responsibility, carmakers instead to be liable for infringements such as dangerous driving, exceeding the speed limit or running a red light
Slovakia's transport authority issues Klein Vision's AirCar with certificate of airworthiness in accordance with European Aviation Safety Agency standards, the current prototype has completed more than 70 hours of test flights with 200 take-offs and landings, the 160 horsepower BMW engine provides a range of 500 kilometres
Mullvad VPN announces diskless servers as first step toward solution where users can verify what software is running on machines, part of long-term project to achieve maximum trustworthiness through system transparency
Apple to scan iPhone user’s private photos and report child abuse imagery found to the authorities, bypassing any end-to-end encryption, describing privacy activists as "the screeching voices of the minority", Edward Snowden among signatory of petition on Github against Apple's plan
Virgin founder Richard Branson makes trip to suborbital space on the Virgin Galactic Unity 22 spaceplane on Sunday, narrowly beating Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos to travel away from Earth, who argues it does not count as it failed to pass the Kármán line, which at 100km above sea level is considered by many to be the true boundary of space
Kawasaki Heavy Industries builds world’s first of 80 planned tankers for liquified hydrogen, the tanker is 116 meters long and can transport 75 tons of liquified hydrogen kept at temperatures of minus 253 degrees Celsius, the Japanese government’s plan for 2050 is having hydrogen and ammonia serve as the fuel for 10 percent of electric power generation
Third of staff quit as software company Basecamp refuses to let internal work tools become platform for political activism and shuts down employee committee formed to promote diversity, equity and inclusion
Valve will not allow Super Seducer 3: The Final Seduction to be released in any form on Steam citing it does not ship sexually explicit images of real people, the first two games remain available on Steam, the game revolves around the art of pickup artistry
Apple develops car and plans to start production in 2024, started designing the vehicle from scratch in 2014 and project lead is Doug Field who previously worked for Tesla, key component is unique battery technology which is said to be less expensive and increase range
Lockheed U-2 remains leading spy plane after 65 years in service and now gets 30 years extension after beating modern planes and drones in competition for development resources
Segway ends production of iconic self-balancing transportation device which was hailed as revolutionary but remained a curiosity, brand name lives on as well as thousands of patents used in e-scooters, hoverboards and other successor technologies
Texas Instruments removes support for C-based and assembly-based programs on the TI-84 Plus CE and the TI-83 Premium CE to minimize security risks and impede cheating, the development community views the decision as the end of an era
Linus Torvalds switches from Intel processors after 15 years and upgrades his main computer with a 32-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970x, writes that while he has not yet switched to ARM, the allmodconfig test builds are now three times faster
Elon Musk tweets Tesla will move to Texas and Nevada from California as home of Fremont plant, Alameda County says lockdown will remain while rest of state will allow manufacturers to reopen, Musk has criticized the lockdown and stay-at-home orders calling them fascist
Drones capable of measuring body temperature from 58 meters away as well as detecting sneezing, coughing, heart and breathing rates to be tested by the police in Westport, Connecticut, to provide better support for at-risk groups, police says that the drones will only be used outside individual private yards and will not use facial recognition technology
Google and Apple announce joint effort to create tracing tool in order to assist governments and health agencies in managing Covid-19 pandemic, Bluetooth-based platform is said to be opt-in with user privacy and security central to the design, the project also involves releasing APIs enabling interoperability between Android and iOS devices using public health authority apps
Dyson designs and builds entirely new ventilator in 10 days and plans selling 10,000 units to the UK government as well as donating 5,000 units to international efforts, UK firm Gtech is also working to produce ventilators and has submitted two examples to the government for assessment, in the US Ford has announced working together with 3M and GE Healthcare to produce medical equipment and GM as well as Tesla have pledged to make ventilators
World Athletics rules controversial patented Nike Vaporfly shoes saving elite marathon athletes up to two minutes legally allowable, puts "indefinite moratorium" on future technology advances as well as soles thicker than 40mm with more than one rigid embedded plate and only allows shoes that has been available on open retail market for four months, the AlphaFly shoes Eliud Kipchoge used when running a marathon distance under two hours in Vienna in October to be banned under new rules
European Parliament wants to force tech companies to use same kind of charger for all mobile pohones, tablets and e-book readers, Apple says such legislation would stifle innovation and create environmental waste
Source tells The Guardian Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' phone was compromised by Saudi cyberattack in 2018, claims prince Mohamed bin Salman sent Bezos infected video file through WhatsApp
Google CEO Sundar Pichai urges governments to regulate AI in Financial Times piece, excessively heavy-handed regulation might unduly stifle innovation, regulations must be tailored on a sector-by-sector basis, scheduled to speak at World Economic Forum later this week
Separate computer network disconnected from Internet successfully tested in Russia according to its government, sovereign Runet goal with similarities to solutions used in China and Iran
Nasa and Lockheed Martin develop 1,770kph supersonic passenger jet nicknamed "Son of Concorde", X-59 QueSST designed to fly at Mach 1.4 at an altitude of 16.8 km and shaped to reduce sonic booms enabling it to travel over land, first test flight planned for 2021 or 2022
Chile protestors take down police drone with laser pointers, affect drone cameras which makes operator lose control and disables autonomous steering features
Richard Stallman, legendary programmer and activist for free software, resigns from positions at MIT and Free Software Foundation after making controversial comments about Jeffrey Epstein on mailing list
Toyota aims for future Prius to be self-sufficient via solar panels, prototype covered with panels adds 56 km to car's range
Security researcher decides on "NULL" for personalized number plate, hoping to be invisible to DMV ticketing system, instead every ticket without a real plate is sent to him once NULL was associated with his address, earning him a total of USD 12,049 worth of tickets
Huawei unveils HarmonyOS, microkernel-based distributed operating system, claims system more powerful and secure than Android and with IPC performance five times that of Google’s Fuchsia, continues using Android with HarmonyOS as official backup plan
Tesla launches Megapack, a modular system for large-scale energy storage, units with storage capacity of 3 MWh each can be built together for energy storage facilities up to 1 GWh and 250 MW output on 3 acres of land and be delivered ready for operation in three months
Elon Musk's Neuralink develops robot-assisted method for implanting flexible electrode threads with a total of 3072 electrodes into rat brains and register data from all of them, the company sees potential to implant several units into human brains
Peter Thiel says FBI and CIA should investigate if Google has been infiltrated by Chinese intelligence, as Alphabet chooses to work with Chinese and not US military, comparing Google's AI program to the Manhattan Project
Instagram uses AI to curb bullying, asks users to think again before posting unkind comments, first introduced to English-speaking Instagram users, company also tests feature allowing users to control who sees their comments without them knowing
30% of world's VPN services secretly owned by six Chinese companies, according to study by cyber security group VPNpro
Two pistols made from 4.5 billion-year-old Muonionalusta Meteorite auctioned, could fetch USD 1.5 million, modeled after famous Colt 1911 they have been test-fired to make sure they actually work
Jony Ive leaves Apple to start own firm, has been Apple's design chief for more than 20 years and designed all its major products including the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch as well as Mac and MacBook computers
Hackers have stolen call records from over 10 cell providers worldwide as part of espionage attempt, believed to be state-backed, attacks were first discovered a year ago, but go back seven years and are still operational
Apple patents Apple Watch camera integrated into part of the band, can have cameras on both sides and be angled by pulling out the band, could replace the smartphone in some situations
Hypersonic missiles United States' new arms race with Russia and China, unstoppable with current technology and could upend the psychology of Mutual Assured Destruction, US prototype meant to fly at speeds between Mach 15 and Mach 20, challenges include protecting missiles from intense heating and accumulating test data given the speed
Uber Eats plans drone delivery in San Diego this summer, initially not to bring orders directly to customers' homes but to traditional drivers who complete delivery, tested carrying McDonald's burgers, fries and ice cream
California Supreme Court rules San Francisco can reject 5G wireless equipment that doesn’t meet local aesthetic standards, some Upper Cole Valley residents deem equipment ugly, they are also concerned exposure to 5G RF radiation might be dangerous
Facebook owned WhatsApp admits vulnerability enabling installation of surveillance software on phones and other devices using the app's voice calling function, calls don't need to be picked up and disappears from call log, software linked to Israeli firm NSO Group, known for its flagship software Pegasus with the ability to collect intimate data from target device
Microsoft Word introduces artificial intelligence to recommend edits that are politically correct and gender inclusive, suggestions include changing "policeman" to "police officer", software will also recommend ways to shorten sentences to ensure brevity
Windows 10 version 1903 gets rid of password expiration policy, admits it doesn't improve online security as too often users make small and predictable alteration or forget their new passwords, when password has been stolen most people will quickly realize and do something about it straight away
Joe Armstrong dead at 68, legendary computer scientist most known for creating programming language Erlang
Non-profit Archive.org hit with more than 550 takedown notices from EU asking them to remove archives including all books, TV footage and cartoons, falsely citing terrorist content, EU currently drafting legislation with fines of 4% of global revenue if takedown notices are not honoured within an hour
Google Wing launches first home delivery drone service in Australia, will deliver takeaway food, coffee and medicines in small packages lowered into customer's garden on a length of string, trials have attracted complaints drones are noisy and intrusive
Security research duo hacks Tesla Model 3 using JIT bug in its browser at Pwn2Own 2019 hacking contest in Vancouver, gets to keep the car and receives USD 35,000 reward
New toilet seat detects early signs of heart failure before symptoms are noticed by picking up blood pressure, oxygen levels and heart rate, could save the lives of potential heart disease victims, developers say
Toyota and JAXA join hands to develop first lunar vehicle that can be used without wearing spacesuits, plan to send the pressurized fuel cell-powered vehicle to the moon for five explorations between 2029 and 2034, will be able to travel more than 10,000 kilometers on the moon’s rough surface
Mozilla launches Firefox Send, a free encrypted file-transfer service, anonymous users can send up to 1GB files while Firefox account owners get 2.5GB, an Android app is released this week
Mozilla release latest version of Common Voice, its open source collection of transcribed voice data that comprises over 1,400 hours of voice samples across 18 languages, says goal is to provide more and better data to those who seek to build and use voice technology
Phone-hacking device law enforcement officials use to extract data from phones pops up on eBay for USD 100, personal data including photos, contacts and messages could still be found on the units, the devices use vulnerabilities unknown at the time to the likes of Apple or Google to access the phones, producer's terms don't permit clients to resell the products
Microsoft announces Hololens 2, promises larger screen area, improved weight balance and hand tracking, priced at USD 3,500
AI-powered website designed by Uber engineer generates endless stream of "fake faces", ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com uses generative adversarial network technology to synthesize unreal human visages from image dataset
Google Chrome prepares Scroll-To-Text feature which let users share link that takes the recipient to the exact word the sender has selected, equivalent of sharing link to a YouTube video that jumps to a preselected time, proposes adjustments to HTML standards so the feature is supported on all browsers
Metropolitan Police stop people covering their faces from facial recognition camera, man who protested fined GBP 90, technology compares live footage of people’s faces to photos from police database, deployment of cameras in Romford last of 10 trials of controversial technology
Apple hints at lower iPhone prices in attempt to boost falling sales, revenue fell 15% in latest financial quarter, Tim Cook says a strong dollar has hurt its sales in emerging markets, sales are up by 5% in in the Americas but dropped by 25% in Greater China region
Apple lays off over 200 employees working on electric car Project Titan, while reassigning some employees to other departments, still believes there is a huge opportunity with autonomous systems
Facebook funds ethics research center for artificial intelligence with the Technical University of Munich, aims to ensure AI treats people fairly, protects their safety, respects their privacy and works for them, Germany said to be "at the forefront of the conversation"
Blind man wins appeal case against Domino's Pizza over accessibility issues with phone app, Guillermo Robles sued the company for violation of 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act, judges ruled that the company failed to provide "full and equal enjoyment" of their pizza ordering services for persons with disabilities
Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa goes down in the UK on Christmas Day morning, likely caused by all new Echo speakers people have bought for Christmas
Discord raises 150 million USD on 2 billion valuation, makes chat app for gamers and has 200 million users, recently launched marketplace for games to compete with Steam
Facebook gave more than 150 companies access to users' personal data without consent, the deals all still active in 2017, allowed Spotify, Netflix and the Royal Bank of Canada to read, write and delete users' private messages
Computer designer Evelyn Berezin dies aged 93, launched the Data Secretary in 1971, recognised as the world's first word processor
Car thieves steal a Tesla Model S by hacking key fob signals, PIN-to-drive and Faraday pouch security features were not enabled by the owner and would've prevented the theft
China to launch artificial moon within two years in order to light up night skies in urban areas, project in Chengdu expected in place by 2022 projected to save USD 170 million a year in electricity costs
New Zealand fan-film "Fanimatrix" oldest extent BitTorrent file at 15 years old, the file share is a relic of a bygone Internet era but still has several "seeders" keeping it active
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicts Internet will bifurcate between China and world, current CEO Pichai has initiated "Project Dragonfly" to build a censored search engine for Chinese market
South Korean police raid Seoul offices of BMW investigating potential vehicle defect coverup, over 40 BMW diesel models have caught fire in Korea this year, BMW Korea chief Kim Hyo Joon has blamed a faulty fuel circulation mechanism for the conflagrations
Over 1.1 billion Indians' biometric and demographic info registered in Aadhaar ID government database raising privacy concerns, the system was recently defended by Bill Gates who extolled its ability to reduce corruption in government payrolls, government whistleblower Edward Snowden has come out against the system claiming it is so insecure you can find private ID info on the web merely by searching for a user's 12-digit string
EU Commissioner of Competition threatens Apple with imposition of uniform USB cable charging standard as the company clings to its proprietary Lightning technology, the EU arch-bureaucrat recently meddled with Google to the tune of a USD 5 billion fine, Apple's proprietary cable technology is a lucrative source of licensing fees